Dinarchus · Orations · 狄那库斯

This popular leader of yours, Athenians, who has imposed on himself a sentence of death should he be proved to have taken even the smallest sum from Harpalus, has been clearly convicted of taking bribes from those very men whom he formerly professed to oppose. Much has already been said by Stratocles and most of the charges have now been made; as regards the report itself the Areopagus has expressed opinions which are both just and true, while with events succeeding this Stratocles has already dealt and read the decrees relating to them.

It remains for us, Athenians, especially when contesting a case never paralleled in the experience of the city, to make a general exhortation to you all. May we ask you first to pardon those of us who have still to speak if there are certain points which we raise again; our aim is not to weary you by alluding twice to the same matters but to arouse your anger all the more. Secondly, may we ask you not to surrender the rights enjoyed by the whole city or to barter away our common security in exchange for the arguments of the defendant.

You are aware, Athenians, that whereas this man Demosthenes is here for judgement before you, you are on trial before your fellows. For they are waiting to see what kind of conclusion you will reach about your country's interests: are you going to welcome into your midst the private venality and corruption of these people, or will you make it universally known that you hate men who accept bribes against their city and that, in ordering the Areopagus to make its inquiry, your intention was not to acquit the culprits but rather, when the councillors had made their report, to exact punishment in a manner appropriate to the crimes? This decision then rests with you now.

For when the people passed a lawful decree and every citizen wished to discover which of the politicians had dared to accept money from Harpalus to the discredit and danger of the city; when, moreover, you, Demosthenes, and many others had proposed in a decree that the Areopagus, according to its traditional right, should hold an inquiry to discover if any of them had received gold from Harpalus, the Areopagus began its investigation.

In reaching a just decision it paid no heed to your challenges, Demosthenes, nor did it wish to pervert the truth or destroy its own reputation on your account. On the contrary, gentlemen, although, as the Areopagites themselves said, the council realized beforehand the strength of these men and their influence as orators and statesmen, it did not consider that if incrimination or danger was threatening its country it ought to be influenced by any misrepresentation likely to be published about itself.

Though this investigation has been conducted, in the people's opinion, both fairly and profitably, accusations, challenges, and calumnies are proceeding from Demosthenes, since he has been listed as the holder of twenty talents of gold. Will that council then which, in cases of willful] murder, is trustworthy enough to arrive at truth and justice and is empowered to pass judgement in matters of life and death on each of the citizens, to take up the cause of those who have met a violent end and banish or execute any in the city who have broken the law, be powerless now to administer justice over the money credited to Demosthenes?

It will; for the council has told lies against Demosthenes. This is the crowning argument in his case. It has told lies, has it, against you and Demades: men against whom it is evidently not even safe to speak the truth; though you previously instructed the Areopagus to investigate many public matters and expressed approval of it for the inquiries which it had held? Are the indictments which the council has made against these men false when the whole city cannot compel them to do right? Great Heavens!

Then why, Demosthenes, did you agree in the Assembly to a penalty of death for yourself, if the report of the council should turn out against you? And why have you yourself ruined many others by insisting on the findings of the council? To what authority should the people now refer, or to whom should it entrust the inquiry in the event of mysterious or momentous crimes, if it is to discover the truth?

For the council which formerly commanded confidence is being discredited by you, who claim to be the people's man, though it is a body to which the people gave in trust the protection of their lives, to whose charge they have often committed their constitution and democracy, a council which, destined though you were to malign it, has safeguarded your life, according to your own account so often threatened, and which keeps the mystic deposits whereby the safety of the city is preserved.

Now in one respect—for I shall speak my mind—the Areopagus fully deserves this treatment. It was faced with two alternatives. One would have been, in accordance with the people's instructions, to conduct the previous investigation over the three hundred talents which came from the Persian king; in which case this monster would have been convicted and the names of those who shared the money published; the betrayal of Thebes, for which Demosthenes was responsible, would have been exposed, and we, exacting from this demagogue the punishment he deserved, would have been rid of him.

Alternatively, if it was your wish to forgive Demosthenes for these offences and to have in the city a large number of people who would take bribes against you, the council ought, having tested your wishes in the previous cases, to have refused to undertake an investigation over the payments of money recently reported. For despite the excellence and the justice of this recent report, which incriminates Demosthenes and the rest of them, and despite the fact that the Areopagus has not deferred to the power of Demosthenes or Demades but has regarded justice and truth as more important,

Demosthenes goes round none the less maligning the council and telling the same stories about himself with which he will probably try to mislead you presently. “I made the Thebans your allies.” No, Demosthenes, you impaired the common interest of both our states. “I brought everyone into line at Chaeronea.” On the contrary you yourself were the only one to leave the line at Chaeronea. “I served on many embassies on your behalf.”

One wonders what he would have done or what he would have said if the course that he had recommended on these missions had proved successful, when, after touring the whole Greek world to negotiate such disasters and mistakes, he still claims to have been granted the greatest privileges, namely those of accepting bribes against his country and saying and doing whatever he wishes against the public interest.

You made no allowance for Timotheus, Athenians, although he sailed round the Peloponnese and defeated the Lacedaemonians in a naval battle at Corcyra, and was the son of Conon too who liberated Greece. Though he captured Samos, Methone, Pydna, Potidaea, and twenty other cities besides, you did not permit such services to outweigh the trial which you were then conducting or the oaths that governed your vote; instead you fined him a hundred talents because Aristophon said that he had accepted money from the Chians and Rhodians.

Will you then absolve this abominable wretch, this Scythian,—really I cannot contain myself,—whom no mere individual but the whole Areopagus has shown, after inquiry, to be in possession of money to your detriment, whose bribery and corruption against the city have been revealed and established beyond doubt? Will you not punish him and make him an example to others? He is known not only to have taken gold from the royal treasuries but also to have enriched himself at the city's own expense, since he did not even withhold his hand from the money lately brought to her by Harpalus.

Yet the embassies to Thebes which Demosthenes undertook are equivalent to a mere fraction of Timotheus' services; and which of you, contrasting with the exploits on which Demosthenes prides himself those which Timotheus and Conon performed on your behalf, would not laugh to scorn all who consented to listen to this man? But then there should be no comparison made between this outcast and the men who in your interests acted worthily of the city and your ancestors. I will therefore cite the decree which was passed concerning Timotheus and then return to my review of the defendant. Read.

Decree This citizen, Demosthenes, of such a character, who might well have gained the pardon and gratitude of his colleagues in the public life of those days, since he had rendered great services to the city, not in word only but in deed, and had always remained true to the same policy rather than changing to and fro as you have done, met his death without begging the people for such extensive favors as would set him above the laws or thinking that men who had sworn to vote in accordance with the law should consider anything more important than their word; he was ready even for condemnation, if the jury decided upon it, and did not plead the inclemency of circumstance or express in public opinions which he did not hold.

Will you not execute this accursed wretch, Athenians, who, in addition to many other crucial blunders, stood by while the Thebans' city was destroyed, though he had accepted three hundred talents from the Persian King for their protection though the Arcadians, arriving at the Isthmus, had dismissed with a rebuff the envoys of Antipater and welcomed those from the unhappy Thebans who had reached them with difficulty by sea, bearing a suppliant's staff and heralds' wands, plaited, they said, from olive shoots?

They came to assure the Arcadians that no wish to break their friendship with the Greeks had led the Thebans to a revolution, nor did they intend to do anything to the detriment of Greece; but they were no longer able to countenance at home the behavior of the Macedonians in the city, to endure slavery, or to witness the outrages perpetrated against the persons of free men.

The Arcadians were ready to help them and, sympathizing with their misfortunes, explained that, though they were compelled through force of circumstance to serve Alexander with their persons, in spirit they sided always with the Thebans and the cause of Greek liberty. Since their leader, Astylus, was open to bribery, as Stratocles said, and wanted ten talents as the price of helping the Thebans, the envoys approached Demosthenes who, as they knew, held the King's gold and earnestly begged him to spend the money to save their city.

But this hard-hearted and impious miser could not bring himself to expend, from his great resources, ten paltry talents, though he saw such high hopes dawning for the salvation of Thebes. Instead, as Stratocles said, he allowed others to provide this sum to induce those of the Arcadians who had marched out to return home and deny their help to Thebes.

Do you consider that the evils for which Demosthenes and his avarice have been responsible are trivial or of little import for the whole of Greece? Do you think that he deserves any pity at your hands after committing such offences? Should he not rather suffer the extreme penalty to atone for his crimes, both past and present? The verdict given by you today, Athenians, will be heard by all mankind, who will observe how you, the judges, treat the man with such a record.

You are the people who, for crimes far smaller than those Demosthenes has committed, have inflicted on men severe and irrevocable penalties. It was you who killed Menon the miller, because he kept a free boy from Pellene in his mill. You punished with death Themistius of Aphidna, because he assaulted the Rhodian lyre-player at the Eleusinian festival, and Euthymachus, because he put the Olynthian girl in a brothel.

But through this traitor children and women, the wives of the Thebans, were distributed among the tents of the barbarians, a neighboring and allied city has been torn up from the midst of Greece and the site of Thebes is being ploughed and sown, the city of men who shared with you the war against Philip. Yes, it is being ploughed and sown. And this unfeeling wretch showed no compassion for a city thus lamentably destroyed, though he visited it as an envoy representing you and has often shared the meat and drink of its citizens, claiming himself that he made it our ally. But those to whom he often resorted in their prosperity he has betrayed in their misfortune.

The Thebans, so our elders tell us, when the democracy in our city had been overthrown and Thrasybulus was assembling the exiles in Thebes ready for the seizure of Phyle, although the Spartans were strong and forbade them to admit or let out any Athenian, helped the democrats to return and passed that decree which has so often been read before you, stating that they would turn a blind eye if any Athenian marched through their territory bearing arms.

This man who fraternizes, as he will presently tell you, with our allies, behaved very differently; he would not part with any of the money which he had received for their protection. Remember these things, gentlemen; consider the disasters caused by traitors in the downfall of Olynthus and of Thebes; decide wisely now in your interest; destroy those who are ready to take bribes against their country and so rest your hopes of safety on yourselves and on the gods.

For there is only one way, Athenians, in which you will reform the rest of mankind, only one way: to expose those criminals who are notable men and punish them as their crimes deserve. In the case of the average defendant no one knows or troubles to inquire, when he is convicted, what has been his sentence. But with men of note everyone hears the news and praises the jury, when they have not sacrificed the interests of justice in deference to the reputation of the defendants. Read the Theban decree. Cite the evidence. Read the letters.

Decree. Evidence. Letters This man is a hireling, Athenians, a hireling of long standing. It was he who summoned from Thebes the embassy coming to us from Philip and was responsible for finishing the first war. He helped to defend Philocrates who proposed the peace with Philip and was exiled by you in consequence, he hired a carriage for the envoys who came here with Antipater, and by attaching them to himself, first introduced into the city the custom of flattering Macedon.

Do not acquit him, Athenians. Do not let go unpunished this man who has endorsed the misfortunes of his country and the rest of Greece, when he has been caught with bribes against the city in his very hands. Now that good fortune is improving your lot and, after expelling from the city one of the two who have defiled their country, has surrendered this other to you for execution, do not oppose all our interests yourselves but rather bring happier omens to our state affairs and divert our misfortunes on to the heads of these leaders.

Against what occasion will you reserve Demosthenes in the belief that he will prove useful to you? Could any one of you, or of the bystanders, say what public or private affairs he has not ruined by his contact with them? After gaining access to the home of Aristarchus and planning with him the death of Nicodemus which they contrived, an affair of which you all know the details, did he not banish Aristarchus on the most shameful charges? And did not Aristarchus find in Demosthenes such a friend as to make him think that this was some evil spirit which had visited him and the originator of all his misfortunes?

Is it not true that once this man began to advise the city, and would he had never done so,—I shall pass over his private affairs, for time does not permit me to speak at length,—absolutely no good has befallen it; indeed not only the city but the whole of Greece has been involved in dangers, misfortunes, and dishonor? Is it not true that he has had many opportunities while speaking to you and yet let slip every opportunity to help you? On those occasions when a patriot with any regard for the city would have chosen to make some move, this demagogue, who will presently say that he has been of service to you, was so far from showing signs of action that he even infected with his own ill-luck the men who were doing something to further your interests.

Charidemus set out to visit the Persian King, wishing to do you some practical service apart from mere talking, and anxious at his own peril to win safety for you and every Greek. Demosthenes went round the market making speeches and associating himself with the project. So completely did fortune wreck this plan that it turned out in just the opposite way to what was expected.

Ephialtes put to sea. Admittedly he hated Demosthenes but he was compelled to have a partner in public affairs. Fortune robbed the city of this man too. Euthydicus elected to work for the people. Demosthenes claimed to be his friend. He too was lost. Do not these facts, which you see and know better than I do, give you cause for thought? Do they not make you weigh up your future prospects in the light of the past and reflect in your own minds that this man is of no use except to our enemies, against the interests of the city?

to raise such another force as we had in the time of Agis, when the Spartans took the field together and Achaeans and men of Elis were taking their part in the campaign with ten thousand mercenaries also; when Alexander was in India, according to report, and the whole of Greece, owing to the traitors in every city, was dissatisfied with the existing state of things and hoped for some release from the misfortunes that beset her. In that hour,—for I need not dwell on other crises,—

what was the behavior of this Demosthenes who had the power to give advice and make proposals, who will shortly tell you that he hates our present circumstances? On these matters, Demosthenes, did you offer any proposal, any advice? Did you contribute money? Were you of the smallest value to the men safeguarding us all? Not the least; you went round suborning speechwriters. He wrote a letter at home, defiling the city's honor,

and walked about dangling it from his finger ends, living in luxury during the city's misfortunes, travelling down the road to the Piraeus in a litter and reproaching the needy for their poverty. Is this man then going to prove useful to you on future occasions, when he has let slip every opportunity in the past? By our lady Athena and Zeus the Savior, I could wish that the enemies of Athens had lighted upon counsellors and leaders like him and never better.

Let me remind you, gentlemen, of the conduct of your forbears, who, at a time when many grave perils beset the city, faced danger in the interests of the people, in a manner worthy of their country and their well-earned reputation, as befitted free men. Time does not permit me to deal with those figures of the past, Aristides and Themistocles: the men who built the city's walls and carried up to the Acropolis the tribute paid by the willing and even eager Greeks.

But you will recall what was done, shortly before our own time, by Cephalus the orator, Thrason of Herchia, Eleus and Phormisius and other fine men, some of whom are still alive today. Some of them, when the Cadmea was garrisoned by Spartans, assisted the exiles who returned to Thebes and at their own risk set free a neighboring city, long enslaved.

Others lent aid when your ancestors were persuaded to take the field by Cephalus, who proposed the decree and who, undaunted by the might of Sparta and regardless of the risks either of military or political action, moved that the Athenians should march out to help the exiles who had taken Thebes. Your fathers did march out and in a few days the commander of the Spartan garrison was expelled, the Thebans had been freed and your city had acted worthily of your ancestors.

They were counsellors, Athenians, they were leaders such as yourselves and the state deserve. How different from rogues like this who neither have done nor will do the city any service but watch over their own safety and treat everything as a source of income. They have made the city more infamous than themselves, and now, convicted of taking bribes against you, they deceive you and presume, after conduct such as this, to talk to you about their own aggrandizement. They ought, by the terms of their own decree, to have been put to death long ago for doing such things.

Are you not ashamed, Athenians, that you should think our speeches the only evidence you have on which to determine the punishment of Demosthenes? Do you not know yourselves that this man is open to bribes and is both a robber and a traitor to his friends that neither he nor the fortune which has gone with him is fit for the city? Are there any decrees or any laws which have not brought him money?

Are there any people in the court who were among those included in the three hundred when Demosthenes brought in his law concerning the trierarchs? Then tell your neighbors that he accepted three talents and used to alter and re-draft the law for every sitting of the Assembly, in some cases taking money over points for which he had been paid already, in others failing to honor the sales which he had made.

Really, gentlemen, tell me: do you think he got nothing for proposing that Diphilus should have meals at the Prytaneum or for that statue to be put up in the market? Nothing for conferring Athenian citizenship on Chaerephilus, Phidon, Pamphilus, and Phidippus, or again on Epigenes and Conon the bankers? Nothing for putting up in the market bronze statues of Berisades, Satyrus and Gorgippus the tyrants from the Pontus, from whom he receives a thousand medimni of wheat a year—this man who will presently tell you that there is nowhere for him to take refuge.

Did he get nothing for proposing that Taurosthenes should become an Athenian, though he had enslaved his fellow citizens and, with his brother Callias, betrayed the whole of Euboea to Philip? Taurosthenes whom the laws forbid to set foot on Athenian soil, providing that if he does so he shall be liable to the same penalties as an exile who returns after being sentenced by the Areopagus. This was the man who Demosthenes the democrat proposed should be your fellow citizen.

Is there any need then for me to call up witnesses for you so far as these men are concerned or any of the others whom he has proposed as proxeni or citizens? I ask you in Athena's name: do you imagine that when he gladly accepts silver he would refuse twenty talents of gold? Do you think that though he takes money in dribblets, he would not accept as a lump sum so great a fee, or that the Areopagus, which spent six months inquiring over Demosthenes, Demades, and Cephisophon, has been unjust over the reports submitted to you?

Gentlemen, you have very many witnesses, as I said before, among citizens and other Greeks, watching to see how you will judge this trial; are you, they wonder, going to bring within the scope of the courts the venal actions of other men, or will there be complete freedom to accept bribes against you? Will the things which so far have been held trustworthy and sure now cease to be so on account of the trial of Demosthenes? On his past record he ought to have been put to death, and he is liable to all the curses known to the city,

having broken the oaths he took on the Areopagus, in the names of the holy goddesses and the other deities by whom it is customary to swear there, and making himself accursed at every sitting of the Assembly. He has been proved to have taken bribes against Athens, has cheated the people and the council in defiance of the curse, professing views he does not hold, and in private has recommended to Aristarchus a course both cruel and unlawful. For these misdeeds, if there is any power to exact a just punishment from perjurers and criminals—as there surely is—this man shall pay today. Gentlemen of the jury, listen to the curse.

Curse Despite this, gentlemen of the jury, Demosthenes is so ready with his lies and utterly unsound assertions, so oblivious of shame, exposure, or curse, that he will dare to say of me, I gather, that I too was previously condemned by the council. According to him I am behaving with the utmost inconsistency, because in the past I opposed the council's report and pleaded my own case, whereas I am now serving as its advocate and accusing him over the report before us today.

This is a story of his own invention, not based on fact, and he is impudent enough to lie to you. So to make sure that, if he embarks upon this story, you will pay no attention to him but will realize fully that the council did not report me and was in no danger of doing so,—the truth being that I suffered at the hands of a man of low character who has been convicted before you,—let me explain briefly. Then I will come back to Demosthenes.

The council of the Areopagus is bound, gentlemen, to follow one of two methods in making all its reports. What are these methods? Its inquiry is made either on its own initiative or in obedience to the people's instructions. Apart from these two, there is no other procedure it could follow. If then you tell us, you abominable brute, that the council followed the people's instructions in making its inquiry and publishing the report on me,

show me the decree and tell me who were my accusers after the report was made. Compare the present case, where you have both: a decree which authorized the council's inquiry, and accusers, elected by the people, who are now giving the jury an account of the crimes. If your story is true, I am prepared to die. But if you claim that the council took the initiative in reporting me, produce the Areopagites as witnesses, just as I myself shall produce them to show that I was not reported,

to show in fact that, after impeaching one rogue and traitor who, like you, had maligned the council and myself, I proved before two thousand five hundred citizens that he had hired himself to Pythocles in making this attack upon me, and so avenged myself with the help of those then serving on the jury. Clerk, please take the deposition. I laid it before the jury previously as evidence and no one questioned its veracity. So I will produce it now. Read the deposition.

Deposition Is it not an anomaly, Athenians, that on that occasion, because one man, Pistias an Areopagite, told lies against the council and myself and said that I was a criminal, falsehood would have prevailed over truth, if through my weakness and isolation at the time the trumped up lies against me had been believed; whereas now, when the fact is admitted by the whole Areopagus that Demosthenes has taken twenty talents of gold against your interests, and is therefore a criminal, and that your popular leader, in whom some men place their hopes,

has been caught in the act of taking bribes, the customs of the Areopagus and truth and justice are going to prove weaker than Demosthenes' word? Truth will be overridden by the slanderous statement he intends to make against the council, namely that many of those reported by it as a menace to the people have, on coming into court, been acquitted, in some cases the council failing to secure a fifth part of the votes. There is an explanation for this which you will easily follow.

The council, gentlemen, has its own method of inquiring into the cases which you assign to it and the crimes committed within its own body. Unlike yourselves,—and you need not take offence at this,—who are sometimes apt when judging to give more weight to mercy than to justice, it simply reports anyone who is liable to the charges in question or has broken any traditional rule of conduct believing that if a person is in the habit of committing small offences he will more easily involve himself in serious crimes.

Consequently when one of its number robbed the ferryman of his fare it fined him and reported him to you. Again, when someone claimed the five drachma allowance in the name of an absentee, it reported him also to you. Similarly it fined and expelled the man who presumed to break the rule and sell the Areopagite portion.

You tried these men and acquitted them. You were not thereby convicting the Areopagus of error but you were more concerned with sympathy than justice, and thought the punishment too severe for the offence which the defendants had committed. Do you imagine then, Demosthenes, that the council made a false report? Of course it did not. Nevertheless, gentlemen, you acquitted these men and others like them, though the council reported that they were guilty of breaking its rules.

In the case of Polyeuctus of Cydantidae, when the people instructed the council to inquire whether he was accompanying the exiles to Megara and to report back after the investigation, it reported that he was doing so. You chose accusers as the law prescribes: Polyeuctus came into court and you acquitted him, on his admitting that he was going to Megara to Nicophanes who, he said, was married to his mother. So you did not consider that he was doing anything strange or reprehensible in keeping in touch with his mother's husband who was in difficulties, or in assisting him, so far as he could, while he was banished from the country.

The report of the council, Demosthenes, was not proved false; it was quite true, but the jury decided to acquit Polyeuctus. The council was instructed to discover the truth, yet, as I say, the court decided whether it was a case for pardon. Is that any reason for distrusting the council over the present reports in which it has stated that you and your confederates are in possession of the gold? That would be disgraceful.

Convince the jury now, Demosthenes, that any of those crimes ranks with yours and that to take bribes against one's country is a pardonable act which would justify these men in acquitting you. For other pecuniary offences the laws prescribe damages twice as great as the sum involved, but in cases of bribery they have laid down two penalties only: either death, to ensure that by meeting with this punishment the guilty man is an example to others, or a fine for bribery ten times as great as the original bribe, so that men who dare to commit this offence shall not gain by it.

Perhaps you will not attempt to argue thus, Demosthenes, but will say that of those whom the council has reported up till now the rest have admitted that the penalty which it imposed was deserved, whereas you alone have protested against it. But you alone, of all those ever reported, asked these men of your own accord to be your judges and court of inquiry. You proposed the decree against yourself and made the people witness of the agreement, defining the penalty for yourself as death, if the council should report that you had taken any of the money brought into the country by Harpalus.

And yet in the past, Demosthenes, you proposed that the council of the Areopagus should have power over all these men, and the rest of Athens too, to enforce the laws of the land and punish any who transgressed them. It was you who surrendered the whole city into the hands of this council which you will presently tell us is oligarchic. By the terms of your decree the death sentence has been inflicted on two citizens, a father and a son, who were given over to the executioner.

One of the descendants of Harmodius was imprisoned in pursuance of your order. These gentlemen, acting on the council's report, tortured and killed Antiphon. You expelled Charinus from the city for treason on the strength of the council's reports and punishments. After proposing this treatment for yourself also, are you now overriding the decree of your own accord? Surely that is neither just nor lawful.

I summon as my witnesses, Athenians, the awful goddesses and their abode, the heroes of the land, Athena Polias, and those other gods who have obtained our city and countryside as their home, to show that when the people has consigned to you for punishment one who, against his country's interests, has accepted a part of the imported money, one who has defiled and ruined the city's prosperity and betrayed that country which he claimed to have fortified by his diplomacy,

enemies, and those who bear the city ill will, would wish him alive, counting this a disaster for Athens; but all who favor your concerns and hope that with a turn of fortune the city's prospects may improve wish that this man may die and pay the penalty merited by his conduct, and such is the burden of their prayers. I also join in praying the gods to save our country, which I see to be in danger of forfeiting its safety, its women and children, its honor, and every other thing of worth.

What shall we say to the bystanders, Athenians, when we come out of the court, if you are deceived, as I pray you may not be, by the wizardry of this man? What will be the feelings of you all, when, on your return, you presume to look upon your fathers' hearths, after acquitting the traitor who first brought into his own home the gold of bribery; after convicting as utterly false, in both its inquiry and its conclusion, the body which all men hold in the greatest awe?

What hopes, Athenians,—picture for yourselves,—what hopes shall we have if some danger overtakes the city, when we have made it a safe thing to take bribes against one's country and have robbed of its status the body which kept watch over the city in such times of crisis?

Or again,—let us suppose this to happen,—what if Alexander, in pursuance of Demosthenes' decree, sends and asks us for the gold brought into the country by Harpalus, and, over and above the fact that the council has made a report, sends down here the slaves which have now been returned to him and asks us to find out the truth from them; what in Heaven's name shall we say, gentlemen?

Will you propose, Demosthenes, that we go to war, in view of your success with the previous wars? Suppose the rest of Athens decides on this, which is fairer: for your gold to be available for war along with other people's or for others to contribute from their own property, melting down the personal ornaments of their wives, the cups and all the country's store of offerings to the gods, as you said you would suggest, though you yourself paid in fifty drachmas from your houses in Piraeus and the city? That has been your contribution under the last levy though now you have twenty talents.

Perhaps you will not advocate war but advise us to follow out the decree which you proposed and give back to Alexander the gold brought to us? If so, it will be for your sake that the people have to restore it. It is surely neither just nor fair nor democratic that those who work should contribute, while you plunder and steal; that some should make no secret of the property they hold and make contributions proportionate to it, while you who have received more than a hundred and fifty talents, either from the King's money or from your association with Alexander, have no declared property in the city but have fortified yourself against the people as though you had no confidence in your own conduct of affairs.

Is it right, when the laws demand that the orator or general who expects to get the people's confidence shall observe the laws in begetting children, shall own land within our boundaries, shall give all the lawful pledges and only thus lay claim to be the people's leader, that you should have sold the land inherited from your father or be claiming as yours children which are not your own, thus breaking the laws which govern oaths in court, and be ordering others to fight when you deserted the citizens' ranks yourself?

What do you think it is, Athenians, that makes cities vary between good and evil fortunes? You will find only one cause: the counsellors and leaders. Take Thebes. It was a city; it became supreme. Under what leaders and generals? All the older men, on whose authority I shall give you the story, would admit that it was when Pelopidas, so they have it,

led the Sacred Band and Epaminondas and their compeers were in command. It was then that Thebes won the battle of Leuctra, then that they invaded the Spartans' country which, it was thought, could not be ravaged. During that period they accomplished many fine achievements: founded Messene in the four hundredth year after its fall, gave the Arcadians self-government, and won a universal reputation.

On the other hand when was their achievement despicable and unworthy of their spirit? When Timolaus, the friend of Demosthenes, was corrupted and took bribes from Philip, when the traitor Proxenus commanded the mercenaries enlisted at Amphissa and Theagenes was placed in command of the phalanx, a man of ill luck and, like the defendant here, open to bribes. Then, because of the three men whom I have mentioned, the whole city was destroyed and blotted from the face of Greece. Far from being false it is only too true that leaders are responsible for all the citizens' good fortunes and for the reverse.

Think again, this time of Athens, with the same points in mind. Our city was great, renowned in Greece, and worthy of our forbears, apart from the well-known exploits of the past, at the time when Conon triumphed, as our elders tell us, in the naval battle at Cnidus; when Iphicrates destroyed the Spartan company, when Chabrias defeated the Spartan triremes at sea off Naxos, when Timotheus won the sea battle off Corcyra.

That was the time, Athenians, when the Spartans, once famous through the leaders in whose ways they had been schooled, came humbly to our city and begged our ancestors to save them; and the democracy which they had overthrown was made by the counsellors, whom we then had, the first power in Greece again: deservedly, in my belief; for they had found generals of the type I have just mentioned and had as advisers Archinus and Cephalus of Collytus. For the only salvation of a city or a nation is to find brave men to lead it and wise counsellors.

It follows then, Athenians, that if you fully recognize this fact you should not surely be parties in future to Demosthenes' corruption and ill-luck or rest your hopes of security on him; you need not think that you will lack brave men or wise advisers. Let the anger of your forefathers be yours. Put to death this robber taken in the act, this traitor who does not withhold his hands from the gold brought into Athens but has cast the city into the direst misfortunes, this arch-criminal of Greece. Have his body cast beyond the city's borders, give her fortunes a chance to mend, and then, with this accomplished, expect a happier lot.

I want you also, Athenians, to hear that other decree moved by Demosthenes, the decree which this democratic statesman proposed when the city was in disorder after the battle of Chaeronea, and also the oracle sent from Dodona from Dodonian Zeus; for it has long been warning you clearly to beware of your leaders and advisers. Read the oracle first.

Oracle Read that splendid decree of his. Part of the Decree A fine democrat indeed who arranges for himself, being a brave and courageous man, to remain in arms, while he orders the citizens whom he rejects for service to go off to their work or to do anything else he thinks is called for. Read the rest.

Rest of the Decree Listen to that, gentlemen of the jury. The decree says that the chosen embassies shall set out. When, after the battle of Chaeronea, he heard that Philip intended to invade our country he appointed himself an envoy, so as to escape from the city, and went off, after scraping together eight talents from the treasury, without a thought about the plight we were in, at a time when everyone else was contributing from his own money to ensure your protection.

That is the character of your adviser. Demosthenes has made only these two journeys abroad in his life: one after the battle when he ran away from the city, and another just recently to Olympia when he wanted to use the presidency of the sacred embassy as a means of meeting Nicanor. A right thing indeed to entrust the city to this man's charge, when danger confronts us! When it was time to fight against the enemy, side by side with his fellows, he left his post and made for home; yet when he should have stayed at home to face danger with them, he offered himself as an envoy and ran away and left the city.

When ambassadors were needed for the peace he said he would not move a foot to leave the city; yet when it was reported that Alexander was restoring the exiles and Nicanor came to Olympia he offered himself to the council as president of the sacred embassy. These are the parts he plays: on the field of battle he is a stay-at-home, when others stay at home he is an ambassador, among ambassadors he is a runaway. Now read the and the decree relating to the inquiry over the money proposed by Demosthenes for the Areopagus and affecting both himself and you. I want you by comparing them together to realize that he is demented.

Decree Did you propose this, Demosthenes? You did; you cannot deny it. Was the council given authority on your motion? It was. Have some of the citizens been executed? They have. Did your decree have power over them? You cannot deny that it did. Read the decree again which Demosthenes proposed against Demosthenes. Let me have your attention, gentlemen.

Decree The council has found Demosthenes guilty. Need we enlarge on this? It has made its report on him, Athenians. Justice demanded that, having been self-condemned, he should immediately be put to death. But now that he has fallen into the hands of you who have been assembled by the people and have sworn to obey the laws and the people's decrees, what will you do? Will you ignore the claims of piety towards the gods and the justice recognized by the world? No, Athenians, do not do so.

It would be an utter disgrace if, when others no worse, and even less guilty, than Demosthenes have been destroyed by his decrees, he, with his contempt for you and the laws, should be at large unpunished in the city, when by his own motion and the decrees which he proposed he has been convicted. The same council, Athenians, the same place, the same rights have been in question.

The same orator was responsible for the misfortunes which overtook them and those which will soon overtake him. He himself in the Assembly instructed this council to judge his case, after calling on you as his witnesses. He made an agreement with the people and proposed the decree against himself, to be kept by the mother of the gods, who is the city's guardian of all written contracts. It would thus be impious for you to invalidate this or, after swearing by the gods in the present trial, to give a vote which did not conform with the actions of the gods themselves.

When Poseidon lost his suit against Ares over Halirrothius he abode by the decision. The awful goddesses too, in their case against Orestes, abode by the judgement of this council, associating themselves for the future with its reputation for truth. How will you act with your claim to unrivalled piety? Will you annul the decision of the council and follow the bad example of Demosthenes? You will not, Athenians, if you remain in your senses.

This is no small or incidental matter that you are deciding today; the question at issue is the safety of the whole city and also bribery, an evil habit and a practice which is harmful to you and has always brought men to ruin. If you do everything in your power to rid the city of this vice and to suppress those who gladly take bribes against you, we shall be saved, with Heaven's consent. But if you allow the orators to sell you, you will stand by and see them wreck the city.

Demosthenes himself proposed in the Assembly, clearly implying that it was a just step to take, that we should keep for Alexander the money brought into Attica with Harpalus. Tell me, sir: are we going to keep it under present conditions, when you have taken twenty talents for personal use, someone else fifteen, Demades six thousand gold staters, and the others the various sums that have been credited to them? For sixty-four talents have already been traced, for which, you must conclude, gentlemen, that these men are to be held responsible.

Which is the more honorable alternative, which the more just: that all the money should be kept in the treasury until the people has reached some fair decision, or that the orators and certain of the generals should seize and keep it? Personally I think that to keep it in the treasury is the course which all would admit to be just, while no one would consider it fair for these men to retain it.

The statements made by the defendant, gentlemen, have been numerous and very varied but never consistent. For he realizes that all along you have been cheated by him with empty hopes and lying assertions and that you remember his promises only so long as they are being uttered. If then the city must go on enjoying the fruits of Demosthenes' wickedness and ill-fortune, that we may still be plagued by an evil genius,—I can find no other word for it,—we should acquiesce in the present state of affairs.

But if we have any regard for our country, if we hate wicked and corrupt men and want our fortune to change for the better, you must not surrender yourselves, Athenians, to the prayers of this accursed juggler or lend an ear to his laments and quackeries. You have had enough experience of him, his speeches, his actions, and his luck.

Which of you is so hopeful, Athenians, or so irrational, which of you is so unversed in past or present history, as to expect that a man who reduced the city, through whatever fault or fortune,—I am not concerned with that,—from such great prosperity to such utter disgrace, will save us now by serving as a counsellor and administrator? For besides the other difficulties and dangers which beset us we have now corruption also, of men right in the city, and are one and all striving to clear ourselves of a shameful charge, lest the people be thought to hold in their own name the money which certain individuals are keeping for themselves.

I am not citing other instances of his continual change of policy or of the pernicious speeches which he has consistently made. At one time he made a proposal forbidding anyone to believe in any but the accepted gods and at another said that the people must not question the grant of divine honors to Alexander; and again when he was on the point of being tried before you, he impeached Callimedon for consorting with the exiles in Megara with intent to overthrow the democracy,

and directly after countermanded the impeachment and brought forward at the recent sitting of the Assembly a false witness whom he had primed to say that there was a plot afoot threatening the docks. In all this he offered no proposals but simply furnished us with charges for the present trial, since on all these points you are witnesses against him. This man is a juggler, Athenians, and a blackguard, not entitled to be a citizen of Athens, either by virtue of his birth or of his political record.

Where are the triremes which Demosthenes, like Eubulus in his time, has supplied to the city? Where are the dockyards built under his administration? When did he improve the cavalry either by decree or law? Despite such opportunities as were offered after the battle of Chaeronea, did he raise a single force either for land or sea? What ornament for the goddess has he carried up to the Acropolis? What building has Demosthenes put up, either in your exchange, or in the city, or anywhere else in the country? Not a man could point to one anywhere.

Very well; if a person has proved untrustworthy in military matters and useless in the business of the city, if he has idly watched his opponents accomplish everything they wished, changing his own position and neglecting to pursue the people's interests, will you wish to preserve him?

Not if you are prudent and make the right decision for yourselves and Athens. No; you will welcome the good fortune which gave up to you for punishment those orators who, through their own bribery, have humiliated the city, and will beware, as the gods have often cautioned you in oracles, against the leaders and counsellors of this type. Listen to the oracle itself. Read the oracle.

Oracle How then shall we be of one mind, Athenians? How shall we agree upon the interests of the state when our leaders and demagogues take bribes and betray their country's interests, when you yourselves and the whole people are in danger of losing the very foundations of Athens, together with your fathers' temples and your wives and children, while they have conspired together, so that in the assemblies they purposely abuse and lose their tempers with each other, though in private they are united and thus deceive you, who are so ready to lend an ear to what they say.

What is the duty of a democratic orator, hating those who menace the city by speech or bill? What are we told, Demosthenes and Polyeuctus, about your predecessors? What did they always do, even though no danger threatened the city at the time? Did they not summon each other for trial; bring in impeachments? Did they not indict each other for illegal proposals? Have you, who profess to have the people at heart, and maintain that your safety rests upon this jury's vote, done a single one of these things?

Have you denounced a decree, Demosthenes, despite the many outrageous and illegal measures which Demades has proposed? Have you prevented any political step among those which he has taken on his own initiative against the interests of the state? Not a single one. Have you impeached this man who has often acted contrary to the decrees of the people and the laws? Never. You allowed him to have his statue set up in bronze in the market and to share entertainment in the Prytaneum with the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogiton.

In what way then did the people sample your goodwill, where did we see proof of the orator's protecting power? Or will you all maintain that herein lie your powers: to cheat these men by persisting that you cannot leave the country, that you have no other refuge than our goodwill? You ought first to have made it clear that in speech and action you opposed the decrees brought forward against the people's interests and then sought to convince these men that your claim to have no means of safety but the assistance offered by the people was true.

But you place your hopes abroad and compete in flattery with those who admit that they are serving Alexander and have taken bribes from the same sources as those from which you are reported by the council to have received them. And you, Demosthenes, after conversing with Nicanor in front of all the Greeks and settling everything you wanted, now make yourself out to be in need of pity, traitor though you are and a receiver of bribes; as if these men will forget your wickedness, as if you will not pay the penalty for the crimes at which you have been caught. You are acting more boldly than Demades to this extent,

that though he has given warning in the Assembly of his desperate character and admits that he accepts money and will continue to do so, still he has not dared to show his face before these men and did not presume to dispute the council's report; moreover he did not propose that the council should have authority over him or lay down the death penalty if he should be proved to have taken bribes. But you have such complete confidence in your own arguments and such a contempt for these men's simplicity that you expect to persuade the jury that in your case only has the council's statement been false and that you alone of those whom it reported have not accepted the gold. Who could believe that?

Let me explain, Athenians, what you are going to do. You have taken over the case from the people, who know the facts; and to undergo the punishment, due to those whose names appear in the reports, Demosthenes is brought in first. We have made our accusation and have allowed no private interest on the part of any to stand in the way of common justice.

Will you disregard all that has passed and acquit the first man up before you? Will you, with full power at your command, reject what seemed just both to the people and the Areopagus, and indeed to everyone, and take upon yourselves these men's depravity?

Or will you, for the city's sake, give a demonstration to all alike of the hatred you bear towards traitors and those who, through love of gain, betray the people's interests? All this now lies in your control, and the fifteen hundred of you hold the city's safety in your hands. Your verdict of today will either bring to Athens great security, if you are willing to make a just decision, or else, if you endorse such practices as this, drive all men to despondency.

You must not be cowed, Athenians, or by losing your self-control give up the city's just defence, which touches all alike, in deference to Demosthenes' entreaties. For none of you compelled this man to take the money, to which he had no right, against your own interests, when he has acquired, with your assistance, much more than enough besides, nor to defend himself now when the crimes have been acknowledged and he has proposed the death penalty for himself. But the avarice and wickedness, fostered in him by his whole mode of life, have brought this on his head.

So do not be concerned when he weeps and laments. You might, with far more justice, pity the country, which this man is exposing to danger by behaving as he has, and which is begging you, who are its sons, in the names of your wives and children, to take vengeance on the traitor and save it: the land which your ancestors, after facing many noble combats for it, have handed on to you free in which many noble examples have been left us of the courage of those who gave their lives.

It is this land, Athenians, the sacrifices traditional in it, and its ancestral sepulchres to which right-thinking men must turn their thoughts when they give their vote. And when Demosthenes wishes to cheat you and cunningly turns pathetic, shedding tears, you must think of the city's person, and the glory which it once possessed, and judge between two alternatives: which has become the more deserving of pity: the city because of Demosthenes or Demosthenes because of the city?

You will find that this man has become famous since he entered politics; that from being a speechwriter and a paid advocate, in the service of Ctesippus, Phormio and many others, he has become the richest man in Athens; that after being an unknown figure, inheriting no family honor from his ancestors, he is now famous, while the city has reached a pass unworthy of herself or the honor of our forbears. Therefore ignore this man's entreaties and deceptions, bring in the verdict that is just and right, having regard for your country's interest, as befits an honorable jury, not the welfare of Demosthenes.

And whenever anyone comes forward to speak for him, bear in mind that he who does so, even if not involved in the reports we are about to hear, is hostile to the constitution, unwilling to see punished those who take bribes against the people and anxious that the general protection of your persons, for which the Areopagus is responsible, should be abolished and every right in the city overwhelmed; whereas, if it is some orator or general, one of those participating in the defence because they wish to discredit the report, which they expect will reflect against themselves, you must give their arguments no credence, knowing as you do that all these men collaborated over the landing of Harpalus and his release.

You must realize then, Athenians, that when these men come forward, they do so against your interests, being enemies alike of the laws and the entire city. Do not tolerate them; insist that their defence answers the charges. And do not countenance his own fury either; for he prides himself on his powers as an orator and, since he is known to have taken bribes against you, has been proved an even greater fraud. No, punish him in a manner befitting yourselves and the city. If you do not, by one verdict and at one trial you will release all who have been reported, and all who ever will be, and will bring these men's corruption upon yourselves and upon the people, even though, afterwards, you may prosecute those who acquitted them, when it will avail you nothing.

I have now played my full part in assisting the prosecution and have shown regard for nothing but justice and your interests. I have not deserted the city or given more weight to personal favor than to the people's vote. With an appeal to you to show the same spirit I now hand over the water to the other prosecutors.

There is nothing, it appears, Athenians, which we must not expect either to hear or see in connection with the reports which have been made; but the most remarkable fact of all, in my opinion, confronts us now. The worst character in the city, I should say in the whole world, Aristogiton, has come to pit himself in law against the Areopagus on the subject of truth and justice; and the council which has made the report is now in greater danger than this man who takes bribes against you and who sold for twenty minas the right of free speech in the cause of justice.

It will be no new or alarming experience for the defendant if he is convicted, for he has committed in the past many other crimes meriting the death penalty and has spent more time in prison than out of it. While he has been in debt to the state he has prosecuted men with citizen rights, though not entitled to do so, and has committed numerous other offences of which you have a more exact knowledge than I. It is a most shameful and monstrous thing for this council to be suspected of making a false report against Aristogiton and for him to be considered among you as having more justice on his side than it has.

For this reason, Athenians, thinking that the trial holds no dangers for him, this man is coming forward, I believe, to test your attitude. He has often undergone all sorts of suffering short of death, which, if God so wills it and you are wise, he will undergo today. For you must assume, by Heracles, that there will be no improvement in him if he is pardoned by you now, and that in future he will not abstain from taking bribes against you if you now acquit him. For when wickedness is in its infancy perhaps it can be checked by punishment, but when it has grown old and has sampled the usual penalties, it is said to be incurable.

If therefore you wish depravity to grow up ingrained in Athens, you should preserve Aristogiton and allow him to act there as he pleases. But if you hate the wicked and accursed and can recall with resentment what this man has done in the past, kill him, for he dared to take money from Harpalus, who he knew was coming to seize your city. Cut short his excuses and deceptive arguments, on which he now depends when he appears before you.

Do you realize that, awkward though the arrival of Harpalus was, it has been an advantage to the city in one respect, because it has given you a sure means of testing those who give up everything to the enemies of Athens for a payment of silver or gold? Do not be lax, Athenians, or weary of punishing the guilty; purge the city of bribery to the utmost of your ability. Do not ask for arguments from me when you see that the crimes have been plainly attributed to those whom the council has reported.

Or ought you to spare the defendant on account of his ancestry and his moderation, or because he has done you many public and private services? What information do you lack that makes you ask for arguments against the defendant here before you? What if we, the accusers, all ten of us, use up all the water in our clocks and proclaim that it is a terrible thing to release men who have been caught with bribes against the city in their very hands; will that make the council's report against Aristogiton true and just?

Or suppose that each of us assumes that you are just as well aware as we on which side justice lies in the present trials, and so leaves the platform after a short speech; will the report then be a false one, unjustly made by the Areopagites? Or don't you realize that to take bribes in order to betray the city's interests is one of the greatest crimes causing the most irreparable harm to cities?

No doubt I shall be told that the defendant is himself a man of sober character coming of a good family, that he has done you many noble services in private and in public life and that therefore you are justified in sparing him. You must all have often heard that, when Aristogiton's father Cydimachus was condemned to death and fled from the city, this admirable son allowed his own father to lack the bare necessities of life, while he survived, and do without a proper burial when he died: a fact for which evidence was often brought against him;

or again, that the man himself, on being taken to prison for the first time,—no doubt you realize that he has often been imprisoned—dared to behave in such a way there that the inmates voted that no one should either light a fire for him or sit at meals or share the usual sacrifices with him. Reflect, Athenians; what sort of character must we suppose this man to have, who was thrown into prison for criminal conduct

and when he was there, among those who had been segregated from the rest of the world as felons, was looked upon as so debased that even there he was not thought worthy of the same treatment as the rest? It is said, in fact, that he was caught thieving among them and that, if there had been any other place more degraded where they could have isolated men who stole in prison, this monster would have been conducted there. These facts, as I said just now, were established by evidence against Aristogiton, as is well known, when the lot fell to him to be custodian of the exchange but he was rejected by those who then decided the appointment to that office.

Do you then feign ignorance among yourselves and give way to pity when the man concerning whom you are about to vote is Aristogiton, who did not pity his own father when reduced to starvation? Do you still wish to hear us talk about the damages he must pay, when you know quite well that his whole life, as well as his recent conduct, justifies the extreme penalty?

Was it not Aristogiton, Athenians, who made in writing such lying assertions about the priestess of Artemis Brauroniaand her relatives, that when you discovered the truth from his accusers, you fined him five talents, a sum equal to the fine set down in an indictment for illegal proposals? Has he not persisted in maligning every one of you he meets, though he has not yet paid up, and in speaking and proposing measures in the Assembly, regardless of all the penalties against wrongdoers which the laws prescribe?

And finally, when an information was lodged against him by Lycurgus,and he was convicted, a debtor to the state without the right to speak in public, when he had been handed over to the Eleven in accordance with the laws, was he not seenwalking about in the front of the lawcourts, and used he not to sit on the seat of the Prytanes?

Well then, Athenians, if a man has often been committed to you lawfully for punishment, condemned on information lodged by citizens, if neither the Eleven nor the prison have been able to restrain him, will you want to use him as a counsellor? The law demands that the herald shall first pray, amid dead silence, before he surrenders to you the task of deliberating on public affairs. Will you then allow an impious wretch, who has proved wicked in his dealings with everyone, and in particular his own father, to share in citizenship with you, with your families and kinsmen?

After rejecting all thought of pardon for Demades and Demosthenes, because they were proved to have been taking bribes against you, and punishing them,—quite rightly, though you knew that they had served you during their administration, certainly in many respects if not in everything,—will you acquit this accursed man who has not done you a service ever since he has been in politics but has been the greatest possible menace? Would not everyone reproach you if you accepted such a person as your adviser? For when you are addressed by a man whose wickedness is both notorious and undeniable and a byword among all Athenians, the bystanders will wonder whether you who listen to him have no better advisers or whether you enjoy hearing such people.

Like the early lawgivers, Athenians, who made laws to deal with those addressing your ancestors in the Assembly, you too should try, by your behavior as listeners, to make the speakers who come before you better. What was the attitude of the lawgivers to these men? In the first place, at every sitting of the Assembly they publicly proclaimed curses against wrongdoers, calling down destruction on any who, after accepting bribes, made speeches or proposals upon state affairs, and to that class Aristogiton now belongs.

Secondly, they provided in the laws for indictments for bribery, and this is the only offence for which they imposed a payment equal to ten times the assessment of damages,in the belief that one who is ready to be paid for the opinions which he is going to express in the Assembly has at heart, when he is speaking, not the interests of the people but the welfare of those who have paid him. Now the council has reported Aristogiton as guilty of this. Moreover, when choosing a man for public office they used to ask what his personal character was, whether he treated his parents well, whether he had served the city in the field, whether he had an ancestral cult or paid taxes.

Aristogiton could not claim one of these qualifications for himself. So far from treating his parents well this man has ill-treated his own father. When you were all serving in the army he was in prison; and, far from being able to point to any memorial of his father, Athenians, he did not give him a proper funeral even in Eretria where he died. While other Athenians are contributing from their own purses this man has not even paid up all the money to defray the public debts which he incurred.

In fact he has never ceased to contravene all the laws, and his is the one case of those on which the Areopagus has reported where you had inquired yourselves and already knew the answer. For your knowledge that this man is a rogue and a criminal was not gained from the council; you are all very well aware of his wickedness, and hence the statement so often made applies here also, namely that, while you are passing judgement on the defendant, the bystanders and everyone besides are passing judgement on you.

Therefore it is your duty as a sensible jury, Athenians, not to vote against yourselves or the rest of Athens; you should sentence him unanimously to be handed over to the executioners for the death penalty. Do not be traitors and fail to give the honest verdict demanded by your oath. Remember that this man has been convicted by the council of taking bribes against you, convicted of ill-treating him, to use the mildest term, by his father during his life and after his death, condemned by the people's vote and handed over to you for punishment.

Remember that this man has caused a deal of harm and has now been caught doing wrong in circumstances which make it shameful for you, his judges, to release him unpunished. For if you do so, how are you going to vote on the other reports, Athenians? What justification will you give for having condemned those men whom you have already tried? What reason will you have, when you were clearly anxious for the council to report those who had taken the money, for failing obviously to punish the men whose names they submit?

You must not imagine that these trials are private issues concerning no one but the men reported; they are public and concern the rest of us as well. A case of bribery and treason tried before you will affect others in the future in two possible ways: either it will make them accept bribes against you unhesitatingly in the knowledge that they will not be brought to justice, or it will make them afraid to take them, since they will know that those who are caught will be punished in a manner suited to the crime.

Do you not know that now the fear of what you will do restrains those who are grasping for the money offered for use against you and often makes them turn their backs on the bribe, and that the people's decree, ordering the council to inquire about this money, has prevented even those who brought the gold into the country from admitting their action?

It was a noble decree, Athenians, a noble decree of your ancestors on this question, providing for a pillar on the Acropolis at the time when Arthmius, son of Pithonax, the Zelite, is said to have brought the gold from the Persians to corrupt the Greeks. For before anyone had accepted it or given proof of his character they sentenced the man who had brought the gold to exile and banished him completely from the country. This decision, as I said, they engraved on a bronze pillar and set up on the Acropolis as a lesson for you their descendants; for they believed that the man who accepted money in any way at all had in mind the interests of the donors rather than those of the city.

His was the only case in which they added the reason why the people banished him from the city, explicitly writing on the pillar that Arthmius, son of Pithonax, the Zelite, was an enemy of the people and its allies, he and his descendants, and was exiled from Athens because he had brought the Persian gold to the Peloponnese. And yet if the people regarded the gold in the Peloponnese as a source of great danger to Greece, how can we remain unmoved at the sight of bribery in the city itself? Please attend to the inscription on the pillar.

Inscription Now what do you think those men would have done, Athenians, if they had caught a general or an orator, one of their own citizens, accepting bribes against the interests of their country, when they so justly and wisely expelled a man who was alien to Greece in birth and character? That is the reason why they faced danger against the barbarian worthily of the city and their ancestors.

What in Heaven's name are we to say about such men as this? How will you deal with the wickedness of Philocles, who has been convicted by the Areopagus not once only but three times, as you all know, and as you were recently informed in the Assembly? He has lied before all the Athenians and the surrounding crowd, saying that he would prevent Harpalus from putting into the Piraeus, when he had been appointed by you as general in command of Munichia and the dockyards,

and he dared to take bribes against you all, against your country and your wives and children; he has broken the oath which he swore between the statue of Athena and the table; and he proposed a decree against himself imposing the death penalty on him if he had accepted any of the money which Harpalus brought into the country.

Yet despite this he dared to come and show himself to you when you knew that he had been proved answerable on all these counts. It is not justice on which he is relying, Athenians; for what has he to do with justice? No, it is audacity and effrontery, in virtue of which he has seen fit to take bribes in the past, to the utter disregard of yourselves and the course of justice in the city, and has now come forward to explain that he is guilty of none of these things. So complete has been his contempt for your apathy.

The law of the city, which binds us all, lays it down that if anyone breaks an agreement made in the presence of one of the citizens he shall be liable as an offender. Shall this man, who has deceived every Athenian, betrayed the trust which he did not deserve to receive from you, and so done everything in his power to ruin all the city's institutions, claim that he is coming to make his defence against the charge laid against him?

It is my personal opinion, Athenians, if I am to speak the truth,—as I must,—that there is no question whether the reports bearing on Philocles are true or false; you have simply to consider now the punishment mentioned in the decree and to decide whether you ought to fine a man who has done the city so much harm or sentence him to death,—as he proposed in the decree against himself,—confiscating the property which he has amassed from perquisites like this.

Do you think that this question of the gold is the first occasion when Philocles has shown his dishonesty and that he has never taken bribes against you before? You are wrong. He has been like this a long time, though you did not notice it; indeed you have been fortunate not to have met with his venality on more important occasions; for there is no greater menace than a man whose dishonesty passes unobserved.

Athenians, will you not all unite in killing one who has plunged many of our citizens into such deep disgrace and guilt, who first opened the way for the gold that has been distributed, exposing the whole of Athens to blame? Or will you consent to hear this man, who has done so much to harm you, argue that the council of the Areopagus has falsified the reports and that, while he is just and upright and incorruptible, it has published all this in return for favors or bribes?

Do you realize that, although in the case of other offences you must first consider critically and with deliberation, discovering the truth, and only then administer punishment to the offenders, nevertheless, in cases of obvious and unquestioned treason, you should give first place to anger and the vengeance that goes with it?

Do you think this man would refrain from selling any one of the things most vital in the city, when you, relying on his loyalty and honesty, had placed him in charge of it? Do you think that there are any triremes in the dockyards which he would not let go, or that he would trouble to keep anything safe, if there was a prospect of escaping detection and receiving double the amount of gold which he has now received? Nothing, gentlemen, is beyond a man of this type.

For if anyone values silver and gold more highly than his loyalty to you and has no more regard for an oath or for honor and right than he has for making money, then that man, in so far as he is able, will sell Munichia if he has a buyer; he will signal to the enemy and reveal your secrets, he will betray your army and your fleet.

Therefore, Athenians, do not imagine that, in assessing the penalty, you are merely going to judge of the crimes which Philocles has actually committed; you will bear in mind those which he would have committed, had it been in his power. Thank the gods, now that you know the defendant's character, that you have suffered no more grievous harm at his hands, and punish him as your duty and his baseness demand.

This man, Athenians, has held a cavalry command, three or four times, over reputable men; he has been appointed a general by you more than ten times, unworthy though he was, and has enjoyed honor and aroused emulation because of his reputation for loyalty towards you. Yet he sold and betrayed the dignity of a command conferred by us, reducing himself to the level of Aristogiton and changing from a general into a hireling and a traitor.

Is this a reason why you, the injured parties, should give way to feelings of consideration for such a person when he himself showed no consideration in treating you and your fellows as he did? Those who could justly claim your pity, Athenians, are not the like of him,—far from it,—they are those whom Philocles would have betrayed if he had had the chance of a good price; and among them are the promontory and harbors, and the dockyards which your ancestors built and left you.

You must remember these, Athenians, and not make light of the reports published by the council. Treat this case as you treated those on which you have already passed judgement. For it is shameful to grow weary of punishing men who have proved traitors to the city, and shameful that any lawbreakers and reprobates should survive, when the gods have exposed them and surrendered them to you for punishment, having seen that the whole people had accused Philocles and handed him over first of all to meet with his deserts before you.

By Zeus the Savior, I am ashamed that you should need us to encourage you and goad you on before you proceed to punish the defendant now on trial. Are you not eyewitnesses of the crimes he has committed? The whole people considered that it was not safe or right to trust him with their children and so rejected him as Supervisor of the Ephebi.

Will you, the guardians of democracy and law, spare a man who has behaved like this; you to whom the fortune of lot has entrusted the protection of the people by means of the judgement you will give? You are the supreme court of justice in the city. Will you acquit a man guilty of taking bribes and every other crime, who, as I said just now, is unique among criminals in that he has been reported not once merely but three times and might already have been rightly made liable three times to the death penalty by his own decree.

Then why will you wait, Athenians? What further crimes do you wish to hear of greater than those we have mentioned? Was it not you and your ancestors who made no allowance for Timotheus, though he had sailed round the Peloponnese and beaten the Spartans in the sea-fight at Corcyra, though his father was Conon who liberated Greece and he himself had taken Samos, Methone, Pydna, Potidaea, and twenty cities besides? You did not take this record into consideration at all, or allow such services to outweigh the case before you or the oaths which you swear before giving your verdict, but fined him a hundred talents, because Aristophon said he had been bribed by the Chians and Rhodians.

Will you then acquit this abominable man, reported not by one individual but by the whole council of the Areopagus, after an investigation, to be holding bribes against you; who, though he has ample means and no male heirs and lacks nothing else that a normal man could need, did not withhold his hand from the bribes offered against his country or suppress his natural depravity, but destroyed entirely his reputation for loyalty towards you, by ranging himself with those whom he once professed to oppose and proving that his counterfeited honesty was sham?

Let every one of you bear these points in mind, Athenians, and remember the present circumstances, which call for good faith, not corruption. You must hate the wicked, wipe out such monsters from the city, and show the world that the mass of people have not been corrupted with a few orators and generals and are not cowed by their reputation; for they realize that with integrity and agreement among ourselves we shall easily triumph, by the grace of the gods, if anyone unjustly attacks us, but that with bribery and treason and the allied vices practiced by men like this no city could survive.

Therefore, Athenians, do not admit any request or plea for pity; do not condone the guilt which you have seen fastened upon the defendants in the plain light of facts, or invalidate the council's report; but one and all assist your country and the laws, since both are now on trial against this man's iniquity.

The whole country will be affected by the verdict you are about to give: the shrines which have been erected in it, the agelong traditions, and the constitution which your ancestors have handed down to you. It is not a question of Philocles alone; for he has condemned himself to death long ago. In addressing these entreaties to you I am urging a far juster plea than the men who have committed these shameful acts: I am asking you not to desert the things for which your ancestors faced many dangers, not to turn the city's honor into utter shame, and not to let personal regard for the defendants override your respect for the laws, the people's decrees, and the reports of the council.

>For let me make it quite clear to you, Athenians, quite clear, that you are being applauded universally in consequence of the inquiries held upon this money, and that men who have been convicted of taking bribes against their own country are regarded as wicked and injurious, haters of democracy, professing, as they do, to be your friends and to work for the city's interests, and having made their reputation thanks to you.