Greek Texts & Translations

58.48That in regard to the criminal information, therefore, neither Theocrines nor anyone of those who speak in his behalf will have any just argument to advance, I take it you are all pretty well assured. I fancy, however, that they will try to maintain that criminal informations may not be lodged against those who are not registered on the Acropolis, ^note and that it is not right to consider those as debtors whose names no one has given over to the collectors, 58.49just as though you were unaware of the law which declares a man a debtor from the day on which the penalty has been imposed or on which he has transgressed the law or the decree; or as if it were not clear to everybody that there are many ways in which people who wish to obey the laws become debtors to the treasury and meet the obligation. This is plain from the law itself.

Take this law again, please.Law

Do you hear, you abominable beast, what the statute says? “From the day on which the penalty shall be imposed or on which he transgresses the law.”

58.50I hear that they are going to produce also that law which ordains that, in the interest of those who are inscribed on the register, whatever portion of the debt be paid shall be erased, and they will ask how men are to make erasures, when the debt has not even been entered on the register; as if you did not know that this statute has to do with debtors who are registered, while to those who are not registered but owe money that other law applies, which declares that one is a debtor from the day on which the penalty is incurred or on which he transgresses the law or the decree. 58.51Why, then, he will ask, do you not indict me for non-insertion in the register, seeing that I am a debtor, and not registered? Because the law ordains that indictments for non-insertion shall be lodged, not against those who are debtors and not registered, but against those who, although they have been registered and have not paid their debt, nevertheless have their names erased.

Take the law, please, and read it.Law

58.52You hear the law, men of the jury, hear that it expressly declares that, if any one of those indebted to the treasury shall have his name erased without having discharged his debt to the state, an indictment for non-insertion in the register may be brought against him before the Thesmothetae, but not against a debtor who has not been registered. Against persons of this class it ordains that there shall be a criminal information and other legal penalties. But why do you, Theocrines, try to teach me all the ways in which one may avenge oneself upon one's enemies, instead of making a defence in the action in which you have come into court?

58.53Moerocles, ^note men of the jury, who proposed the decree against those who injure merchants, and who persuaded, not you alone, but your allies as well, to organize a sort of police to repress the wrongdoers, will not be ashamed presently on behalf of Theocrines to speak in opposition to his own decree. 58.54On the contrary, he will have the audacity to advise you that you ought not to punish, but to acquit, the one who has thus manifestly been convicted of lodging false denunciations against the merchants; as if his measures for purging the sea had no other purpose than that voyagers who had come safely through the dangers of the open sea might pay money to these people in the harbor; or as if it were any advantage to the merchants that, after completing a long voyage without mishap, they should fall into the hands of Theocrines.