The Lives of the Ten Orators (12-13)

Archon Pytharatus,[*] Laches, son of Demochares, of Leuconoê, asks from the senate and people of the Athenians

for Demochares, son of Laches, of Leuconoê, a grant of a bronze statue in the Market-place, and maintenance in the Prytaneum for him and the eldest of his descendants in perpetuity, and the privilege of a front seat at all public spectacles, because he proved himself a benefactor and a good counsellor to the people of the Athenians and benefited the people as follows: He was a good ambassador, proposer of legislation, and statesman [⋯, and he superintended] the building of the walls and the preparation of armour, missiles, and engines of war, he fortified the city at the time of the four years’ war[*] and made peace, truce, and alliance with the Boeotians, in return for which he was banished by those who overthrew the democracy. When he was recalled by the people in the archonship of Diocles,[*] he first reduced the expenses of the administration and was sparing of the public resources; he went as envoy to Lysimachus and secured for the people thirty talents of silver and again one hundred more; he proposed the sending of an embassy to Ptolemy in Egypt, and those who took part in it brought back for the people fifty talents of silver; he was envoy to Antipater and secured twenty talents of silver which he brought to Eleusis for the people. He won the assent of the people to all these measures and accomplished them; he was exiled for the sake of the democracy, he took no part in any oligarchy, he held no office after the democracy had been overthrown, and he was the only Athenian of those who were engaged in public life in his time who never plotted to alter the government of the country by changing it to a form other than democracy; he made the decisions of the courts, the laws, the courts, and property, safe for all Athenians by the policy he pursued, and he never did anything adverse to the democracy by word or deed.

Lycophron, son of Lycurgus, of the deme Butadae, presented in writing a claim for maintenance in the Prytaneum for himself in accordance with the gift presented by the people to Lycurgus of the deme Butadae. In the archonship of Anaxicrates,[*] in the sixth prytany, that of the tribe Antiochis, Stratocles, son of Euthydemus, of the deme Diomeia, made the following motion: Whereas Lycurgus, son of Lycophron, of the deme Butadae, having inherited from early times from his ancestors that loyalty to the democracy which has been peculiar to his family, and the progenitors of Lycurgus, Lycomedes and Lycurgus, were not only honoured by the people during their lives, but also after their death the people granted them for their courage and virtue public burials in the Cerameicus; and whereas Lycurgus himself during his public career made many excellent laws for his country, and when he was treasurer of the public revenues of the city for three periods of four years distributed from the public revenue eighteen thousand nine hundred talents; and having received in trust large funds from private citizens, from which he made loans previously agreed upon in order to meet the exigencies of the city and the people, in all six hundred and fifty talents; and, because he was believed to have administered all these funds justly, was often crowned by the State; and whereas when chosen by the people he brought together large sums of money upon the Acropolis, providing adornment for the Goddess, solid gold Victories, gold and silver vessels for the processions, and ornaments of gold for one hundred basket-carriers,[*] and when chosen to be in charge of the equipment for the war he brought to the Acropolis many pieces of armour and fifty thousand missiles and fitted out four hundred triremes ready to set sail, providing the equipment for some of them and causing some to be built from the beginning;

and besides all this he finished the ship-sheds and the arsenal, which were half done when they came into his hands, and completed the Panathenaic stadium and erected the gymnasium at the Lyceum, and adorned the city with many other edifices. And when King Alexander, after overthrowing all Asia, assumed to give orders to all the Greeks in common and demanded that Lycurgus be surrendered because he was acting in opposition to him, the city did not surrender him in spite of fear of Alexander. And although he had many times submitted his accounts while the city was free and had a democratic form of government, he never was convicted of wrongdoing or of taking bribes through all his career. Therefore, that all may know that those who choose to act justly in public life in behalf of democracy and freedom are held in the highest esteem while living and receive after death enduring gratitude: With good Fortune: Be it resolved by the people to commend Lycurgus, son of Lycophron, of the deme Butadae, for his virtue and justice, and to set up a bronze statue of him in the Market-place, only not in any place where the law forbids its erection, and to grant maintenance in the Prytaneum to the eldest descendant of Lycurgus for all time, and that all his decrees be valid, and that the secretary of the people inscribe them on stone tablets arid place them on the Acropolis near the dedicatory offerings; and that the treasurer of the people give for inscribing the tablets fifty drachmas from the funds expended by the people for decrees.