Greek Texts & Translations

18.102I will now return to my next ensuing public actions; consider them once again in relation to the best interests of the commonwealth. Observing that the navy was going to pieces, that the wealthy were let off with trifling contributions, while citizens of moderate or small means were losing all they had, and that as a result the government was missing its opportunities, I made a statute under which I compelled the wealthy to take their fair share of expense, stopped the oppression of the poor, and, by a measure of great public benefit, caused your naval preparations to be made in good time. 18.103Being indicted for this measure, I stood my trial before this court and was acquitted, the prosecutor not getting the fifth part of the votes. Now how much money do you think the first, second, and third classes of contributors on the Naval Boards offered me not to propose the measure, or, failing that, to put it on the list and then drop it on demurrer ^note?\b It was so large a sum, men of Athens, that I hardly like to name it. 18.104It was natural that they should make this attempt. Under the former statutes they might discharge their public services in groups of sixteen, spending little or nothing themselves, but grinding down the needy citizens, whereas by my statute they had to return the full assessment according to their means, and a man who was formerly one of sixteen contributors to a single trireme—for they were dropping the term trierarch and calling themselves contributors-might have to furnish two complete vessels. They offered any amount to get the new rules abrogated and escape their just obligation. 18.105Read first the decree,.for which I was indicted and tried, and then the schedules as compiled under the old statute under my statute.Decree

[In the archonship of Polycles, on the sixteenth of the month Boëdromion, the tribe Hippothontis holding the presidency, Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes, of Paeania, introduced a bill to amend the former law constituting the syndicates for the equipment of triremes. The bill was passed by the Council and the People, and Patrocles of Phlya indicted Demosthenes for a breach of the constitution, and, not obtaining the required proportion of votes, paid the fee of five hundred drachmas.]

Now read that fine schedule.Schedule

[The trierarchs to be called up, sixteen for each trireme, from the associations of joint contributors, from the age of twenty-five to that of forty, paying equal contributions to the public service.]

18.106Now read for comparison the schedule under my statute.Schedule

[The trierarchs to be chosen according to the assessment of their property at ten talents to a trireme; if the property be assessed above that sum, the public service shall be fixed proportionately up to three triremes and a tender. The same proportion shall be observed where those whose property is under ten talents form a syndicate to make up that sum.]

18.107Do you think it was a trifling relief I gave to the poor, or a trifling sum that the rich would have spent to escape their obligation? I pride myself not only on my refusal of compromise and on my acquittal, but also on having enacted a beneficial law and proved it such by experience. During the whole war, while the squadrons were organized under my regulations, no trierarch made petition as aggrieved, or appeared as a suppliant in the dockyard temple, ^note or was imprisoned by the Admiralty, and no ship was either abandoned at sea and lost to the state, or left in harbor as unseaworthy. 18.108Such incidents were frequent under the old regulations, because the public services fell upon poor men, and impossible demands were often made. I transferred the naval obligations from needy to well-to-do people, and so the duty was always discharged. I also claim credit for the very fact that all the measures I adopted brought renown and distinction and strength to the city, and that no measure of mine was invidious, or vexatious, or spiteful, or shabby and unworthy of Athens.