| Lycurgus, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Lycurg.]. | ||
| <<Lycurg. 1.49 | Lycurg. 1.59 (Greek) | >>Lycurg. 1.71 |
1.56Besides, what need had this Athenian to stay five years in Megara as a merchant? What need had he to send for the sacred images of his family or to sell his house in Athens ? The answer is that he had condemned himself as a traitor to his country, as a criminal who had greatly wronged us all. It would be incongruous indeed if you, with the decision in your power, were to dismiss this charge on which he was himself expecting punishment. But quite apart from these objections, we need not, I think, admit this line of defence.
1.57For surely it is outrageous, when men abroad on business were hurrying to the city's help, that Leocrates alone should sail away at such a time for purposes of trade, since no one would then have thought of adding to his wealth. Men's only care was to preserve what they already had. I should like Leocrates to tell me what merchandise he could have brought us to render him more useful than he would have been, had he presented himself before the generals for enrollment and had resisted the invaders by fighting at your sides.
1.58Personally I know no help to equal this. He deserves your anger for this conduct and for his explanation too, since he has not hesitated to tell a blatant lie. For he never previously carried on this trade, being in fact a master smith; and subsequently, after his departure, he imported nothing to us from Megara , though he was away for six years without a break. Besides, he had, as it happens, an interest in the two per cent tax, note which he would never have left to live abroad on business. So if he says a word about these matters, I do not doubt that you will stop him.
Troy . Who has not heard how, after being the greatest city of her time and ruling the whole of Asia , she was deserted for ever when once the Greeks had razed her? Think of Messene too, established again as a city five hundred years after from men of indiscriminate origin. note
1.59He will perhaps in his impetuosity raise the argument, suggested to him by certain of his advocates, that he is not liable on a charge of treason, since he was not responsible for dockyards, gates or camps nor in fact for any of the city's concerns. My own view is that those in charge of these positions could have betrayed a part of your defences only, whereas it was the whole city which Leocrates surrendered. Again, it is the living only whom men of their kind harm, but Leocrates has wronged the dead as well, depriving them of their ancestral rites. 1.60Had the city been betrayed by them it would have been inhabited though enslaved, but left as this man left it, it would have been deserted. Moreover, after suffering hardships cities may well expect to see a change to better times, but with complete destruction even the hopes common to every city are taken from them. A man, if he but lives, has still a prospect of change from evil fortunes, but at his death there perishes with him every means by which prosperity could come. And so it is with cities; their misfortune reaches its limit when they are destroyed. 1.61Indeed, the plain fact is that for a city destruction is like death. Let us take the clearest illustration. Our city was enslaved note in earlier times by the tyrants and later by the Thirty, when the walls were demolished by the Spartans. Yet we were freed from both these evils and the Greeks approved us as the guardians of their welfare. 1.62Not so with any city which has ever been destroyed. First, though it is to quote a rather early case, remember
1.63Perhaps one of his advocates will dare to belittle the offence and say that none of these misfortunes could have resulted from the action of one man. They are not ashamed to make before you the kind of plea for which they deserve to die. For if they admit that he deserted his country, once they have granted this, let them leave it to you to determine the seriousness of the offence; and even if he has committed none of these crimes, surely it is madness to say that this one man could cause no harm. 1.64Personally, gentlemen, I think the opposite is true: the safety of the city rested with this man. For the city's life continues only if each one guards her by personally doing his duty and if a man neglects his duty in a single aspect, he has, unwittingly, neglected it entirely. But it is easy, gentlemen, to ascertain the truth by referring to the attitude of the early lawgivers. 1.65It was not their way, when prescribing the death penalty for the thief who stole a hundred talents, to approve a punishment less severe for one who took ten drachmas. Again with sacrilege: for a great offence they inflicted death, and for a small one too they had no milder punishment. They did not differentiate between him who killed a slave and him who killed a free man, by fining one and outlawing the other. 1.66For all breaches of the law alike, however small, they fixed upon the death penalty, making no special allowances, in their assessment of the magnitude of crimes, for the individual circumstances of each. On one point only they insisted: was the crime such that, if it became more widespread, it would do serious harm to society? And it is absurd to face this question in any other way. Just imagine, gentlemen. Suppose someone had entered the Metroon note and erased one law and then excused himself on the grounds that the city was not endangered by the loss of just this one. Would you not have killed him? I think you would have been justified in doing so, at least if you intended to save the other laws.
| Lycurgus, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Lycurg.]. | ||
| <<Lycurg. 1.49 | Lycurg. 1.59 (Greek) | >>Lycurg. 1.71 |
