| Andocides, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Andoc.]. | ||
| <<Andoc. 1.72 | Andoc. 1.80 (Greek) | >>Andoc. 1.89 |
1.77Sparta and demolished your walls, you allowed your exiles to return too. note Then the Thirty came into power, and there followed the occupation of Phyle and Munychia, and those terrible struggles which I am loath to recall either to myself or to you.
1.81After your return from Peiraeus note you resolved to let bygones be bygones, in spite of the opportunity for revenge. You considered the safety of Athens of more importance than the settlement of private scores; so both sides, you decided, were to forget the past. Accordingly, you elected a commission of twenty to govern Athens until a fresh code of laws had been authorized; during the interval the code of Solon and the statutes of Draco were to be in force.
1.82However, after you had chosen a Council by lot and elected Nomothetae, note you began to discover that there were not a few of the laws of Solon and Draco under which numbers of citizens were liable, owing to previous events. You therefore called a meeting of the Assembly to discuss the difficulty, and as a result enacted that the whole of the laws should be revised and that such as were approved should be inscribed the Portico. note Kindly read the decree.
Decree1.78
On the motion of Patrocleides: whereas the Athenians have enacted that persons disfranchised and public debtors may speak and propose measures in the Assembly with impunity, the People shall pass the decree which was passed at the time of the Persian Wars and which proved of benefit toAthens . As touching such of those registered with the Superintendents of Revenue, the Treasurers of Athena and the other Deities, or the Basileus, as had not been removed from the register before the last sitting of the Council in the archonship of Callias, note:
all who before that date had been disfranchised as debtors: or had been found guilty of maladministration by the Auditors and their assessors at the Auditors' offices: or had been indicted for maladministration, but had not as yet been publicly tried: or <had been condemned to suffer> specific disabilities: or had been condemned as sureties for a defaulter; and all who were recorded as members of the Four Hundred: or who had recorded against them any act performed under the oligarchy—alway excepting those publicly recorded as fugitives: those who have been tried for homicide by the Areopagus, or by the Ephetae, whether sitting at the Pryaneum or the Delphinium, under the Presidency of the Basileus, and are now in exile or under sentence of death note: and those guilty of massacre or attempted tyranny—1.79
shall one and all have their names everywhere cancelled by the Superintendents of Revenue and by the Council in accordance with the foregoing, wherever any public record of their offence be found; and any copies of such records which anywhere exist shall be produced by the Thesmothetae and other magistrates. This shall be done within three days after the consent of the People has been given. And no one shall secretly retain a copy of those records which it has been decided to cancel, nor shall he at any time make malicious reference to the past. He who does so shall be liable to the punishment of fugitives from the court of the Areopagus note: to the end that the Athenians may live in all security both now and hereafter.
1.80By this decree you reinstated those who had lost their rights; but neither the proposal of Patrocleides nor your own enactment contained any reference to a restoration of exiles. However, after you had come to terms with
1.83
Decree1.84
On the motion of Teisamenus note the People decreed thatAthens be governed as of old, in accordance with the laws of Solon, his weights and his measures, and in accordance with the statutes of Draco, which we used aforetime. Such further laws as may be necessary shall be inscribed upon tables by the Nomothetae elected by the Council and named hereafter, exposed before the Tribal Statutes for all to see, and handed over to the magistrates during the present month.
The laws thus handed over, however, shall be submitted beforehand to the scrutiny of the Council and the five hundred Nomothetae elected by the Demes, when they have taken their oath. Further, any private citizen who so desires may come before the Council and suggest improvements in the laws. When the laws have been ratified, they shall be placed under the guardianship of the Council of the Areopagus, to the end that only such laws as have been ratified may be applied by magistrates. Those laws which are approved shall be inscribed upon the wall, where they were inscribed aforetime, for all to see.
1.85There was a revision of the laws, gentlemen, in obedience to this decree, and such as were approved were inscribed in the Portico. When this had been done, we passed a law which is universally enforced. Kindly read it.
Law
In no circumstances shall magistrates enforce a law which has not been inscribed.
| Andocides, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Andoc.]. | ||
| <<Andoc. 1.72 | Andoc. 1.80 (Greek) | >>Andoc. 1.89 |
