Greek Texts & Translations

22.21Again, with regard to the law ^note of prostitution, he tries to make out that we are insulting him and attacking him with baseless calumnies. He says too that if we believed the charges true, we ought to have faced him in the Court of the Thesmothetae, and asked a fine of a thousand drachmas if our charges had been proved false; as it is, we are trying to hoodwink you by accusations and idle abuse, and are confusing you by matters outside your jurisdiction. 22.22But I think you ought first of all to reflect in your own minds that abuse and accusation are very far removed from proof. It is an accusation when one makes a bare statement without supplying grounds for believing it; it is proof when one at the same time demonstrates the truth of one's statements. Those, therefore, who are proving a case must supply evidence sufficient to establish its credibility with you, or must advance reasonable arguments, or must produce witnesses. Of some facts it is impossible to put eye-witnesses in the box, but if one can establish any of these tests, you rightly consider in every case that you have a sufficient proof of the truth. 22.23We then base our proof, not on probabilities nor on circumstantial evidence, but on a witness from whom the defendant may easily obtain satisfaction—a man who has prepared a document containing an account of the defendant's life, and who makes himself responsible for this evidence. So that when Androtion says that this is mere abuse and accusation, reply that this is proof, but that abuse and accusation describe his own performance; and when he says that we ought to have denounced him to the Thesmothetae, reply that we intend to do so, and that we are now quite properly citing this statute. 22.24For if we were bringing these charges against him in any other kind of trial, he could have just cause of complaint; but if the present trial is one that concerns illegal proposals, and if men who have led a life like his are forbidden by the laws to make even a legal proposal, and if we prove that he has not only made an illegal proposal but has also led an illegal life, then is it not proper to cite this law which determines his illegal status?

22.25Moreover you should grasp this fact, that Solon, who framed these and most of our other laws, was a very different kind of legislator from the defendant, and provided not one, but many modes of procedure for those who wish to obtain redress for various wrongs. For he knew, I think, that for all the citizens to be equally clever, or bold, or moderate folk, was impossible. If, then, he was going to frame the laws to satisfy the moderate man's claim to redress, many rascals, he reflected, would get off scot-free, but if he framed them in the interests of the bold and the clever speakers, the plain citizen would not be able to obtain redress in the same way as they would. 22.26But he thought that no one should be debarred from obtaining redress in whatever way he can best do so. How then will this be ensured? By granting many modes of legal procedure to the injured parties. Take a case of theft. Are you a strong man, confident in yourself? Arrest the thief; only you are risking a thousand drachmas. Are you rather weak? Guide the Archons to him, and they will do the rest. Are you afraid even to do this? Bring a written indictment. 22.27Do you distrust yourself, and are you a poor man, unable to find the thousand drachmas? Sue him for theft before a public arbitrator, and you will risk nothing. In the same way for impiety you can arrest, or indict, or sue before the Eumolpidae, or give information to the King-Archon. And in the same way, or nearly so, for every other offence. 22.28Now just suppose that a man, instead of rebutting the charge of crime or impiety or whatever else he may be tried for, should claim his acquittal on these grounds-in the case of an arrest, that you might have brought an action before an arbitrator and that you ought to have indicted him, or, if he is defendant in an arbitrator's court, that you ought to have arrested him, so that you might risk a fine of a thousand drachmas. Surely that would be a farce. A defendant, if innocent, need not dispute the method by which he is brought.to justice: he ought to prove hat he is innocent. 22.29In just the same way, if you, Androtion, propose a decree after having been guilty of prostitution, do not imagine that you ought to escape punishment because we might also have denounced you to the Thesmothetae, but either prove that you are innocent or submit to punishment for any decrees that you have proposed, being what you are; or you have no right to propose them. If we do not punish you by every process that the laws allow, be grateful to us for those that we omit: do not on that ground claim to pay no penalty at all.

22.30Now it is worth your while, men of Athens, to study too the character of Solon, who framed this law, and to observe what care he took of the constitution in all the laws, how much more zealous indeed he was for the constitution than for the matter on which he was legislating. This may be seen in many ways, but especially from this law, which forbids persons guilty of prostitution to make speeches or to propose measures. For he saw that the majority of you do not avail yourselves of your right to speak, so that the prohibition seemed no great hardship, and he could have laid down many harsher penalties, if his object had been the chastisement of these offenders.