Greek Texts & Translations

22.33Again, with regard to the law which forbids him to speak or move resolutions, because his father owed money to the exchequer and has never paid it, you have a fair and reasonable answer to him, if he says that we ought to have laid an information against him. We will do that later, certainly not now, Androtion, when you have to render an account of your other crimes, but when it is proper to do so according to the law. For the present, we are content to prove that the law does not permit you to move resolutions, not even such as every other citizen may move. 22.34Prove, therefore, that your father was not a defaulter, or that he left the prison, not by running away, but by paying his debts. If you cannot prove that, then you had no right to move your resolution; for the law makes you a partner in the disqualification of your father, and being disqualified you had no right either to speak or move. Also with regard to the laws which we have cited in court, I think that if he tries to cheat and mislead you, gentlemen, you must give him the reply that I have indicated.

22.35On other points also he has arguments admirably calculated to deceive you, and it is better that you should be told of them beforehand. One of them runs like this: “Do not steal the reward from five hundred of yourselves, nor involve them in disgrace; they are on their trial, not I.” But, had you been going to deprive them of something without otherwise benefiting the State, I should not have asked you to show any great keenness in the matter; but if by this action you are going to convert more than ten thousand others into better citizens, what a far finer thing it is to make so many men honest than to confer an unjust favour on five hundred. 22.36But I am in a position to assert that the question does not concern the whole Council, but only Androtion and some others, who are the cause of the mischief. For should the Council receive no crown, who suffers disgrace, if he makes no speech and moves no resolution himself, and perhaps even does not attend most of the meetings? No one surely. The disgrace attaches to him who moves resolutions and meddles with politics and tries to impose his wishes on the Council; because it is through such men that the deliberations of the Council have proved undeserving of the crown. 22.37And yet, even if we grant freely that the whole Council is on its trial, reflect how much more advantage you will gain if you condemn Androtion, than if you do not. If you acquit him, the talkers will rule in the Council chamber, but if you convict him, the ordinary members. For when the majority see that they have lost the crown through the misconduct of the orators, they will not leave the transaction of business in their hands, but will depend on themselves for the best advice. If this comes to pass, and if you are once rid of the old gang of orators, then, men of Athens, you will see everything done as it ought to be. For this, if for no other, reason you ought to convict.

22.38Now attend to another point that must not escape you. Perhaps Philippus will get up and defend the Council; perhaps too Antigenes and the checking-clerk ^note and some others, who along with the defendant kept the Council-chamber as their private preserve, and who are the cause of the present discontents. Now you must all observe that their pretence is that they are supporting the cause of the Council, but really they will be fighting for their own interests, to support the audit which they have to render of their official acts. 22.39For the case stands thus. If you dismiss this impeachment, they are all acquitted and not a single one of them will pay the penalty, for who henceforth would give his verdict against them when you have crowned the Council of which they were the leading spirits? But if you convict, in the first place you will have kept your judicial oath; and further, when you have each of these men before you at their audit, anyone whom you think guilty you will punish; and anyone who is not, then will be the time to acquit him. Do not, therefore, accept their words as spoken on behalf of the Council and of the general public, but be incensed against them as impostors defending their own interests.

22.40Again, I expect that Archias, of the deme of Cholargas,—for he too was a Councillor last year-will plead on their behalf in his character of respectable citizen. But I suggest that you should meet his plea in some such way as this. Ask him whether the conduct with which the Council are charged seems to him honorable or the reverse, and if he says “honorable,” pay him no longer the attention due to a respectable man; if he says “dishonorable,” ask him a second question: why did he let it pass, if he claims to be a respectable man? 22.41If he says that he spoke against it but could persuade no one, surely it is ridiculous for him now to defend this Council that rejected all his excellent advice; but if he says that he held his tongue, is he not guilty of an injustice if he neglected his chance of dissuading them from the offence they were contemplating, and yet ventures now to say that having actually done so much evil they deserve to be crowned?