Greek Texts & Translations

1.1Justice towards you, Athenians, and reverence for the gods, shall mark the opening of my speech against Leocrates, now here on trial; so may Athena and those other gods and heroes whose statues are erected in our city and the country round receive this prayer. If I have done justly to prosecute Leocrates, if he whom I now bring to trial has been a traitor to their temples, shrines and precincts, a traitor to the honors which your laws ordain and the sacrificial rituals which your ancestors have handed down, 1.2may they make me on this day, in the interest of the city and its people, a worthy accuser of his crimes; and may you, who in your deliberation now are defending your fathers, wives and children, your country and your temples, who hold at the mercy of your vote one who has betrayed all these things, be inexorable judges, now and in future, towards all who break the laws on such a scale as this. But if the man whom I am now bringing to trial neither betrayed his country nor forsook his city and its temples, I pray that he may be saved from danger by the gods and you, the members of the jury.

1.3Gentlemen, it is a privilege for the city to have within it those who prosecute transgressors of the law, and I could wish to find among the public an appropriate sense of gratitude. In fact the opposite is true, and anyone who takes the personal risk of unpopularity for our common good is actually regarded as an interferer rather than a patriot, which makes neither for justice nor the state's advantage. For the things which in the main uphold our democracy and preserve the city's prosperity are three in number: 1.4first the system of law, second the vote of the jury, and third the method of prosecution by which the crimes are handed over to them. The law exists to lay down what must not be done, the accuser to report those liable to penalties under the law, and the juryman to punish all whom these two agencies have brought to his attention. And thus both law and jury's vote are powerless without an accuser who will hand transgressors over to them. 1.5I myself, Athenians, knew that Leocrates avoided the dangers to which his country called him and deserted his fellow citizens. I knew that he had utterly disregarded your authority and was chargeable with all the articles of the indictment. Therefore I instituted these proceedings. It was not out of hatred in the least nor with the slightest wish to be contentious that I undertook this trial; but I thought it monstrous to allow this man to push into the market place and share the public sacrifices, when he had been a disgrace to his country and to you all. 1.6A just citizen will not let private enmity induce him to start a public prosecution against one who does the state no harm. On the contrary, it is those who break his country's laws whom he will look on as his personal enemies; crimes which affect the public will, in his eyes, offer public grounds for enmity towards the criminals.

1.7All public trials should therefore rank as important, but particularly this present one, in which you are about to cast your vote. For when you give a verdict on a charge of illegal proposals you merely rectify one single error, and in preventing the intended measure your scope depends upon the extent to which the decree in question will harm the city. But the present case is not concerned with some trifling constitutional issue, nor yet with a moment of time; our city's whole life is at stake, and this trial will leave a verdict to posterity to be remembered for all time. 1.8So dangerous is the wrong which has been done and so far-reaching that no indictment adequate could be devised, nor have the laws defined a punishment for the crimes. What punishment would suit a man who left his country and refused to guard the temples of his fathers, who abandoned the graves of his ancestors and surrendered the whole country into the hands of the enemy? The greatest and final penalty, death, though the maximum punishment allowed by law, is too small for the crimes of Leocrates. 1.9The reason why the penalty for such offences, gentlemen, has never been recorded is not that the legislators of the past were neglectful; it is that such things had not happened hitherto and were not expected to happen in the future. It is therefore most essential that you should be not merely judges of this present case but lawmakers besides. For where a crime has been defined by some law, it is easy, with that as a standard, to punish the offender. But where different offences are not specifically included in the law, being covered by a single designation, and where a man has committed crimes worse than these and is equally chargeable with them all, your verdict must be left as a precedent for your successors.