Greek Texts & Translations

18.110My remaining task, I think, is to speak of the proclamation and of the audit; for I hope that what I have already said has been sufficient to satisfy you that my policy was the best, and that I have been the people's friend, and zealous in your service. Yet I pass by the most important of my public actions, first, because I conceive that my next duty is to submit my explanations in respect of the actual charge of illegality, secondly, because, though I say nothing further about the rest of my policy, your own knowledge will serve my purpose equally well.

18.111As for Aeschines' topsy-turvy miscellany of arguments about the statutes transcribed for comparison, ^note I vow to Heaven that I do not believe that you understand the greater part of them, and I am sure they were quite unintelligible to me. I can only offer a plain, straightforward plea on the rights of the matter. So far from claiming, as he invidiously suggested just now, that I am not to be called to account, I fully admit that all my life long I have been accountable for all my official acts and public counsels; 18.112but for the donations that I promised and gave at my own expense I do say that I am not accountable at any time— you hear that, Aeschines—nor is any other man, though he be one of the nine archons. Is there any law so compact of iniquity and illiberality that, when a man out of sheer generosity has given away his own money, it defrauds him of the gratitude he has earned, drags him before a set of prying informers, and gives them authority to hold an audit of his free donations? There is no such law. If he contradicts me, let him produce the law, and I will be satisfied and hold my peace. 18.113But no, the law does not exist, men of Athens; only this man, with his pettifogging spite, because, when I was in charge of the theatric fund, I added gifts of my own to that fund, says, “Ctesiphon gave him a vote of thanks before he had rendered his accounts.” Yes, but the vote of thanks did not concern the accounts which I had to render; it was for my own donations, you pettifogger! “But you were also a Commissioner of Fortifications.” Why, that is how I earned my vote of thanks: I made a present of the money I had spent, and did not charge it to the public account. The account requires an audit and checkers; the benefaction deserves gratitude and formal thanks, and that is the very reason for Ctesiphon's proposition. 18.114That this distinction is recognized both in the statutes and in your moral feelings I can prove by many instances. Nausicles, for example, has been repeatedly decorated by you for the money he spent out of his own pocket when serving as military commander. When Diotimus, and on another occasion Charidemus, had made a present of shields, they were crowned. Then there is our friend Neoptolemus, who has received distinctions for donations given by him as Commissioner for sundry public works. It would be quite intolerable that it should either be illegal for a man holding any office to make presents to the government, or that, when he has made them, instead of receiving thanks, he should be subjected to an audit. 18.115To prove the truth of my statement, please take and read the actual words of the decrees made in the cases I have cited. Read.Decree

[Archonship of Demonicus of Phlya, on the twenty-sixth day of Boedromion, with sanction of Council and People: Callias of Phrearrii proposed that the Council and People resolve to crown Nausicles, the commander of the infantry, because, when Philo, the official paymaster, was prevented by storms from sailing with pay for the two thousand Athenian infantry serving in Imbros to assist the Athenian residents in that island, he paid them from his private means, and did not send in a claim to the people; and that the crown be proclaimed at the Dionysia at the performance of the new tragedies.] 18.116Another Decree
[Proposed by Callias of Phrearrii, and put to vote by the presidents, with sanction of Council: that, whereas Charidemus, dispatched to Salamis in command of the infantry, and Diotimus, commanding the cavalry, when in the battle at the river some of the soldiers had been disarmed by the enemy, did at their own expense arm the younger men with eight hundred shields, it be resolved by the Council and People to crown Charidemus and Diotimus with a golden crown, and to proclaim it at the great Panathenaea during the gymnastic contest, and at the Dionysia at the performance of the new tragedies; and that the proclamation be entrusted to the judicial archons, the presidents, and the stewards of the festival.]

18.117Every one of the persons mentioned, Aeschines, was liable to audit in respect of the office he held, but not of the services for which he was decorated. It follows that I am not liable; for, surely, I have the same rights under the same conditions as anybody else! I made donations. For those donations I am thanked, not being subject to audit for what I gave. I held office. Yes, and I have submitted to audit for my offices, though not for my gifts. Ah, but perhaps I was guilty of official misconduct? Well, the auditors brought me into court—and no complaint from you!