Against Nicomachus

WitnessesReflect, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, that when we proceed in accordance with the regulations, all the ancestral offerings are made; but when we are guided by the pillars as copied by this man, numerous rites are abolished.[*](i.e., some of the ancestral rites are dropped because the necessary funds have to be spent on the rites that he has foisted into the code.) Whereupon the sacrilegious wretch runs about saying that his transcription was piety and not parsimony, and that if you do not approve of his work you had better erase it: by this means he thinks to persuade you of his innocence. Yet in two years he has managed to spend twelve talents more than was necessary,

and has endeavored to mulct the State in a sum of six talents each year,—and that too when he saw her in difficulties for money, the Lacedaemonians threatening us if we failed to remit them their payments, the Boeotians taking reprisals because we could not refund two talents, and the shipping sheds and the walls falling to pieces; when he knew that the Council for the time being is not led into error if it has sufficient means for the administration, but is forced in a time of difficulty to accept impeachments, to confiscate the property of our citizens, and to be swayed by the most unprincipled of its orators!

You ought therefore, gentlemen, to be incensed, not with those who happen to be on the Council, but with those who reduce the State to these awful straits. And the men who seek to rob the public purse are watching closely to see how Nicomachus will fare in these proceedings. If you do not punish him, you will grant them absolute licence; but if you condemn him and award him your heaviest sentence, by the same vote you will reform the rest, and will have done justice upon this man.

Understand, gentlemen of the jury, that it will be an example to the rest, and will deter them from committing offences against you, if instead of punishing unskillful speakers you exact requital from the skillful. And from whom amongst our citizens could it be more suitably exacted than from Nicomachus? Who has rendered less service or done more wrong to the city?

Appointed to transcribe our code of duties, secular and sacred, he has offended against both. Remember that ere now you have put many of the citizens to death for peculation: yet the injury that they had done you was only for the passing moment, whereas these men,[*](The speaker enlarges the crime of the accused by suggesting that there are others practicing or attempting the same thing.) by taking bribes for the version that they made of our laws, damage the city for all time.

And what reason is there for acquitting this man? Because he has taken a brave man’s part in many battles by land and sea against the enemy? But while you were facing danger on naval expeditions, this man stayed at home and corrupted the laws of Solon. Or because he has disbursed money and contributed to numerous levies? But, so far from bestowing anything of his own upon you, he has embezzled a vast amount of your property. Or because of his ancestors?

For this has been a reason in the past for some men obtaining your pardon. But if this man deserves to be put to death on his own account, he ought to be sold on account of his ancestors.[*](Being of servile birth, he has no right to the citizenship, and should be sold in the slave-market.) Or is it that, if you spare him now, he will repay your favours hereafter? He does not even remember the benefits in which you allowed him to share before.

And yet from a slave he has become a citizen, and has exchanged beggary for wealth and the position of under-clerk for that of lawgiver! And here one might even make it an accusation against you that, whereas your ancestors chose as lawgivers Solon, Themistocles and Pericles, in the belief that the laws would accord with the character of their makers, you have chosen Teisamenus,[*](Who proposed the decree that the laws should be revised.) son of Mechanion, and Nicomachus, and other persons who were under-clerks; and although you feel that the magistracy is depraved by people of this sort, it is just these men who have your confidence.

Most extraordinary of all, though it is not permissible for the same man to act twice as under-clerk to the same magistracy, you authorize the same persons to have control over the most important affairs for a long period. And, to crown all, you have chosen Nicomachus for the transcription of our ancestral rites, when on the father’s side he has no connection with the State;

and the man who ought to have been tried by the people is found to have joined in destroying the people. Today, therefore, you must repent of the things that you have done, and refuse to endure continual maltreatment from these men. You reprobate the guilty in private: do not acquit them when you are free to punish them.

On these matters I have now said enough: but in regard to those who propose to beg him off I would make to you a few remarks. Some of his friends and some members of the government have arranged to intercede for him: several of them, in my opinion, ought much rather to defend their own acts than engage to save the guilty.

But it seems to me an extraordinary thing, gentlemen of the jury, that, when he was but one man, in no way wronged by the State, they made no attempt at requiring him to desist from his offences against you, but should seek to persuade you, who are so many and have been wronged by him, that you should not do justice upon him.

You ought therefore to show on your part the same zeal, with which you see them working to save their friends, in punishing your enemies, fully assured that they will be the first to think the better of you for exacting the penalty from the guilty. Reflect that not a single one of those who will plead for him has done as much service as this man has done wrong to the State, and that therefore it is much more your duty to punish than it is theirs to succor.

You must also know for certain that these same men have plied the prosecution with many appeals, but have utterly failed to persuade us: it is to make a base attempt on your vote that they have entered the court, and they are hoping to deceive you, and so obtain licence to act as they please in the future.

Now we, having refused to be swayed by the inducements of their appeal, exhort you to show the same spirit and, instead of merely detesting wickedness before it is brought to trial, to make this trial your means of punishing those who nullify your legislation. For thus everything connected with public affairs will be administered in accordance with the laws.