Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
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24.102Not only, then, does he deprive the court of authority in respect of supplementary payments, offer immunity to defrauders of the State, cripple our national service, and undermine our financial system, but also, by abrogating the penalties imposed by the existing statutes, he has enacted his law for the benefit of swindlers, parricides, and shirkers. 24.103The statutes enacted by Solon, a very different legislator from the defendant, provided that if a man is convicted of theft, and not punished with death, he shall suffer imprisonment; that if a man found guilty of ill-treating his parents intrudes upon the market-place, he shall go to jail; and that if a man, having been convicted of shirking military service, behaves as though he were not disfranchised, he also shall be imprisoned. Timocrates gives impunity to all these offenders, for he abolishes imprisonment if they put in bail. 24.104Therefore, in my judgement )and though you may think what I am going to say rather coarse, I will say it without hesitation(, he deserves, on that very account, to be punished with death, so that he may pass this law in Hell for the benefit of the wicked, and leave us who are still alive in the continued enjoyment of our holy and righteous laws.—Read also the laws I have mentioned. 24.105
Laws Concerning Theft, Maltreatment of Parents, and Desertion
If a man has recovered the property lost, the penalty shall be twice the value of such property; if he has not recovered it, ten times the value in addition to the lawful amercement. The thief shall be kept in the stocks for five days and five nights, if an additional penalty is awarded by the court; and such additional penalty may be proposed by anyone, when the question of sentence is raised.—If any man be put under arrest after being found guilty of ill-treating his parents or of shirking service, or for entering any forbidden place after notice of outlawry, the Eleven shall put him into prison and bring him before the Court of Heliaea, and any person being a lawful prosecutor may prosecute him. If he be found guilty, the Court shall determine what penalty, corporal or pecuniary, he shall suffer; and if the penalty be pecuniary, he shall be kept in prison until he has paid the fine.
24.106Much alike these two legislators, Solon and Timocrates,—are they not, men of
Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
<<Dem. 24.90 | Dem. 24.100 (Greek) | >>Dem. 24.111 |