Greek Texts & Translations

24.108Now I propose to reckon up how I have fulfilled the promises I made at the outset of my address. I undertook to prove that he is amenable to the indictment in every respect, first, because he legislated illegally; secondly, because his proposals were contrary to existing statutes; and thirdly, because they were injurious to the commonwealth. Well, you have now heard the statutes, and what they enjoin upon the author of a new law; and again I have satisfied you that the defendant has not observed any one of those injunctions. 24.109Further, you have also heard the statutes with which the defendant's law is manifestly at variance; and you are aware that he has introduced it without repeal of those statutes. And you have certainly heard that the law is detrimental, for I have only just left off telling you so. Therefore he is unquestionably guilty on every count, and in nothing has he shown consideration or scruple; but, as it seems to me, if anything else had been forbidden by the existing statutes, he would have done that as well.

24.110From every point of view it is clear that he framed his proposals with a sinister purpose, and that he offends of malice prepense and not by error of judgement, especially as the character of his law is preserved down to the very last syllable. He proposed nothing that was right, nothing likely to be serviceable to you, even unintentionally. Surely you are bound to abhor and to punish a man who had no thought for wrongs done to the people, but enacted laws for the benefit of those who have injured you before and will injure you again. 24.111Gentlemen of the jury, I am amazed at the man's effrontery. To think that, when he and Androtion were in office, he never had any compassion for the great body of your fellow-citizens, who were exhausted with paying income-tax, and that then when Androtion was called upon to refund money, both sacred and civil, which he had long before stolen from the State, he must needs propose a law to deprive you of the double repayment of civil, and the tenfold repayment of sacred, liabilities! Thus the whole mass of you citizens has been attacked by a man who was immediately afterwards to pretend that he had framed his law as a friend of the people. 24.112In my view, no punishment could be too severe for a man who, when some market-clerk, or street-inspector, or judge of a local court,—some poor, unskilled man, without experience, and appointed to his office by lot,—has been found guilty of peculation at the audits, demands from him a tenfold restitution, and has no new law to propose for the relief of such delinquents, and then, when ambassadors, elected by vote of the people, men of substance, have embezzled and long retained large sums of money, the property in part of the temples, in part of the treasury, is at great pains to invent for them a way of escape from penalties ordained both by decree and by statute. 24.113And yet Solon, gentlemen of the jury,—and even Timocrates cannot pretend to be a legislator of the same calibre as Solon,—so far from providing such defaulters with the means of swindling in security, actually introduced a law to ensure that they should either refrain from crime or be adequately punished. For a theft in day-time of more than fifty drachmas a man might be arrested summarily and put into custody of the Eleven. If he stole anything, however small, by night, the person aggrieved might lawfully pursue and kill or wound him, or else put him into the hands of the Eleven, at his own option. A man found guilty of an offence for which arrest is lawful was not allowed to put in bail and refund the stolen money; no, the penalty was death. 24.114Or suppose that he stole a cloak, or an oil-flask, or any such trifle, from the Lyceum, or the Academy, or Cynosarges, or any utensil from the gymnasia or the harbors, above the value of ten drachmas, for such thefts also Solon enacted the capital penalty. If a man was found guilty on a private prosecution for theft, while the normal penalty was double reparation, the court was empowered to add to the fine the extra penalty of imprisonment for five days and as many nights, so that everybody might see the thief in jail. You heard those laws read not long ago. 24.115Solon's view was that the doer of infamous deeds ought not to get off with mere repayment of the money stolen; for it seemed to him that there would be no lack of thieves on such terms,—if they had the chance of keeping their booty if undetected, and of simply restoring it if caught. They must pay double; they must be imprisoned as well as fined, and so live in disgrace for the rest of their lives. Not so Timocrates; he made arrangements for a simple, instead of a double, reparation, and for no sort of additional penalty.