Against Aristocrates (61-65)

I shall be told that this is a quibble of ours; who will ever be violently and illegally seized by Charidemus? Everybody. Surely you are aware that any man who has troops at command lays hands on whomsoever he thinks he can overpower, demanding ransom. Heaven and Earth! Is it not monstrous, is it not manifestly contrary to law,—I do not mean merely to the statute law but to the unwritten law of our common humanity,—that I should not be permitted to defend myself against one who violently seizes my goods as though I were an enemy? And that will be so, if the slaying of Charidemus is forbidden even on those terms,—if even though he be iniquitously plundering another man’s property, his slayer is to be liable to seizure, though the statute ordains that he who takes life under such conditions shall have impunity.

Read the next statute.

Statute

Whosoever, whether magistrate or private citizen, shall cause this ordinance to be frustrated, or shall alter the same, shall be disfranchised with his children and his property.

You have heard the statute, men of Athens, declaring in plain terms that whosoever, whether magistrate or private citizen, shall cause this ordinance to be frustrated or shall alter the same, shall be disfranchised with his children and his property. Do you then count this a trifling or worthless precaution taken by the author of the statute to secure its validity, and to save it from being either frustrated or altered? Yet the defendant Aristocrates, with very little regard for the lawgiver, is trying both to alter it and to frustrate it. For surely, to permit punishment outside the established tribunals and beyond the limits of the prohibited areas, or to rob people of the right of fair hearing, and make them outcasts—what is that but alteration? To draft a series of clauses, all of them exactly contradicting the provisions of the statute-book—what is that but frustration?

Besides the laws cited, he has violated many other statutes, which we have not put on the schedule because they are so numerous. I offer a summary statement. Take the laws which deal with courts of homicide, and which order the contending parties to summon one another, or to tender evidence, or to take their oaths, or which give them any other direction; he has violated every one of them; he has drafted this decree in contravention of them all. What other account can one give, when there is no summons, no evidence by witnesses of the fact, no oath-taking,—when the penalty follows on the heels of the accusation, and that a penalty forbidden by the laws? Yet all the proceedings I have named are in use, as ordered by statute, at five different tribunals.[*]

—Yes, but,—someone will say,—those tribunals are worthless and unfairly constituted, whereas the proposals of the defendant are righteous and admirable.—I deny it. I say that of all the proposals ever laid before you I know of none more outrageous than this decree, and that of all the tribunals to be found in the whole world there are none that can be shown to be more venerable or more righteous than ours. I desire to speak briefly of certain truths, the relation of which reflects credit and honor upon the city, and which you will be gratified to hear. I will begin with a statement which you will find especially instructive, first referring to the free gift which has already been conferred upon Charidemus.

It was we, men of Athens, who made Charidemus a citizen, and by that gift bestowed upon him a share in our civil and religious observances, in our legal rights, and in everything in which we ourselves participate. There are many institutions of ours the like of which are not to be found elsewhere, but among them one especially peculiar to ourselves and venerable,—I mean the Court of Areopagus. Concerning that Court I could relate a greater number of noble stories, in part traditional and legendary, in part certified by our own personal testimony, than could be told of any other tribunal. It is worth your while to listen to one or two of them by way of illustration.