Lives of the Ten Orators (13)

LYCOPHRON, the son of Lycurgus of Butadae, requires that he may have diet in the Prytaneum, according to a donation of the people to Lycurgus. In the year of Anaxicrates,[*] in the sixth prytany,—which was that of the tribe Antiochis,—Stratocles, the son of Euthydemus of Diomea, proposed; that,—since Lycurgus, the son of Lycophron of Butadae, had (as it were) an ingenerated good-will in him towards the people of Athens; and since his ancestors Diomedes and Lycurgus lived in honor and esteem of all people, and when they died were honored for their virtue so far as to be buried at the

public charge in the Ceramicus; and since Lycurgus himself, while he had the management of public affairs, was the author of many good and wholesome laws, and was the city treasurer for twelve years together, during which time there passed through his own hands eighteen thousand and nine hundred talents, besides other great sums of money that he was entrusted with by private citizens for the public good, to the sum of six hundred and fifty talents; in all which concerns he behaved himself so justly, that he was often crowned by the city for his fidelity; besides, being chosen by the people to that purpose, he brought much money into the Citadel, and provided ornaments, golden images of victory, and vessels of gold and silver for the Goddess Minerva, and gold ornaments for a hundred Canephoroe;[*] since, being commissary-general, he brought into the stores a great number of arms and at least fifty thousand shot of darts, and set out four hundred galleys, some new built, and others only repaired; since, finding many buildings half finished, as the dock-yards, the arsenal, and the theatre of Bacchus, he completed them; and finished the Panathenaic race, and the court for public exercises at the Lyceum, and adorned the city with many fair new buildings; since, when Alexander, having conquered Asia, and assuming the empire of all Greece, demanded Lycurgus as the principal man that confronted and opposed him in his affairs, the people refused to deliver him up, notwithstanding the terror inspired by Alexander; and since, being often called to account for his management of affairs in so free a city, which was wholly governed by the people, he never was found faulty or corrupt in any particular;—that all people, therefore, may know, not only that the people do highly esteem all such as act in defence of their liberties and rights while they live, but likewise that they pay them honors after death, in the name of Good Fortune it is decreed by the people, that such honors be paid to Lycurgus, the son of Lycophron of Butadae, for his justice and magnanimity, as that a statue of brass be erected in memory of him in any part of the market which the laws do not prohibit; as likewise that there be provision for diet in the Prytaneum for every eldest son of his progeny, successively for ever. Also, that all his decrees be ratified, and engrossed by the public notary, and engraven on pillars of stone, and set up in the Citadel just by the gifts consecrated to Minerva; and that the city treasurer shall deposit fifty drachms for the engraving of them, out of the money set apart for such uses.