Against Nicomachus

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.