Against Leptines (160-161)

And besides all this, observe a further point. That law cannot be a sound one which deals with the past and the future in the same way. None, says this law, shall be immune save and except the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogiton. Good! Nor shall anyone in future be granted immunity. What! not even if other such benefactors arise, Leptines? If you found fault with the past, can it be that you also foresaw the future?

Because, you will say, we are now past such expectation.[*] I pray that we may be, Athenians. But as we are mere mortals, neither our language nor our laws should offend religious sentiment; we may both expect blessings and pray for them, but we must reflect that all things are conditioned by mortality. For the Lacedaemonians never dreamed that they would be brought to their present straits, and perhaps even the Syracusans, once a democracy, who exacted tribute from the Carthaginians and ruled all their neighbors and beat at us at sea, little thought they would fall under the tyranny of a single clerk,[*] if report be true.