| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 22.54 | Dem. 22.65 (Greek) | >>Dem. 22.74 |
22.62I feel sure that of all whom he has abused in his cups, each one looked upon the tax as a necessary item of expenditure, but has been deeply wounded by all these indignities and insults. I feel sure too that he was elected by you to collect money due, and not to reproach every man with his private misfortunes and so make them public. For if the charges were true, Androtion (and we all have our undesirable experiences), you had no right to publish them; and if you invented them without any authority, is any punishment too light for you?
22.63Here is yet another proof that will convince you that they all hate him, not because of the collection, but for his acts of drunken insolence. Satyrus, the superintendent of the dock-yards, collected for you not seven, but thirty-four talents from these very same men, and used the money to equip the ships that were put in commission; and he can tell you that he has made no enemies in consequence, and that none of those from whom he levied the taxes is at open war with him. Naturally! He, I suppose, simply discharged the duty assigned to him, but you in your wanton, headstrong effrontery, being armed with authority, thought fit to terse with foul and lying reproaches men who had spent large sums on the State, better men than yourself and of better birth.
22.64After this, are the jury to believe that you did it all for their sakes? Are they to make themselves responsible for your acts of callous wickedness? They ought in justice to detest you all the more for this rather than protect you. For the man who is acting for the State ought to imitate the spirit of the State, and you, Athenians, ought to encourage such men and hate men like the defendant. For though you are probably aware of it, I must none the less tell you this: whatever sort of men you are seen to honor and protect, you will be thought to be like them yourselves.
Athens ? [He has his share in the proceeds of certain iniquities, and he also gets his pickings from the collection of revenue. In his insatiable greed he reaps a double harvest from the State. Now it is not an easier matter to make enemies of a multitude of petty offenders than of a few big offenders; neither of course is it a more popular thing to have an eye for the sins of the many than for the sins of the few. However, the reason is what I am telling you.] He knows indeed that he is one of them, one of the criminals, but he thought you beneath his notice; and that was why he treated you in this way.
22.68If you had confessed, men of Athens , that you are a nation of slaves and not of men who claim empire over others, you would never have put up with the insults which he repeatedly offered you in the marketplace, binding and arresting aliens and citizens alike, bawling from the platform in the Assembly, calling men slaves and slave-born who were better men than himself and of better birth, and asking if the jail was built for no object. I should certainly say it was, if your father danced his way out of it, fetters and all, at the procession of the Dionysia. All his other outrages it would be impossible to relate; they are too numerous. For all of them taken together you must exact vengeance today, and make an example of him to teach the rest to behave with more restraint.
22.65 note However, I will make it quite clear to you without more ado that he did not carry out these exactions for your benefit at all. If he were asked whether, in his opinion, the greater injury is done to the common wealth by tillers of the soil, who live frugally, but, because of the cost of maintaining their children, or of household expenses, or of other public burdens, are behindhand with their taxes, or by people who plunder and squander the money of willing taxpayers and the revenue that comes from our allies, I am sure that, for all his hardihood, he would never have the audacity to reply that those who fail to contribute their own money are worse transgressors than those who embezzle public money. 22.66What is the reason, you abominable wretch, that though you have taken part in public life for more than thirty years, and though during that time many commanders have defrauded the commonwealth, and many politicians as well, who have been tried in this court, and though some of them have suffered death for their crimes, and others have slipped away into exile, you never once appeared as prosecutor of any of them or expressed any indignation at the wrongs of the city, bold and clever speaker though you are, but made your first exhibition of anxiety for our welfare on an occasion that called for harsh treatment of a great many people? 22.67Do you wish me to tell you the reason, men of
22.69Yes, it may be said, this is the sort of man he was in his public conduct, but there are other things which he has managed with credit. On the contrary, in every respect his behavior towards his fellow-citizens has been such that the story you have heard is the least of the reasons you have for hating him. What do you wish me to mention? How he “repaired” the processional ornaments? How he broke up the crowns? His success as a manufacturer of saucers? Why, for those performances alone, though he had committed no other fraud on the city, it seems to me he deserves not one but three sentences of death; for he is guilty of sacrilege, of impiety, of embezzlement, of every monstrous crime. 22.70The greater part of the speech by which he threw dust in your eyes I will leave unnoticed; but, by alleging that the leaves of the crowns were rotten with age and falling off,—as though they were violet-leaves or rose-leaves, not leaves made of gold—he persuaded you to melt them down. And then, in providing for the collection of taxes, he had put in a clause that the public accountant should attend. That was very honest of him; only every taxpayer was certain to check the accounts. But in dealing with the crowns that he was to break up, he left out that very proper regulation; one and the same man was orator, goldsmith, business manager, and auditor of accounts.
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 22.54 | Dem. 22.65 (Greek) | >>Dem. 22.74 |
