Against Timocrates (56-60)

Read another statute.

The Law

Judgements and awards given under the law while the government was democratic shall be valid.

No, says Timocrates; they shall not be valid, at least when the penalty of imprisonment has been imposed.—Proceed.

Law

But acts done and judgements delivered during the time of the Thirty Tyrants, whether in private or public suits, shall be invalid.

Stop. Tell me; hearing that, what would all of you name as the most terrible misfortune?Against what would you pray most earnestly? I suppose that your prayer would be that the state of things under the Thirty Tyrants should never recur. Anyhow, that, as I understand it, is the misfortune against which this statute provides, by ordaining that the acts of that time shall be invalid. Well, the defendant condemns as illegal acts done under popular government, exactly as you condemned the acts of the tyranny; or at least he makes them equally invalid.

Then what are we to say for ourselves, men of Athens, if we allow this law to be confirmed? That our tribunals, composed under popular government of men who have taken the judicial oath, are guilty of the same iniquities as the tribunals of the Thirty Tyrants? Preposterous! That they give righteous judgements? Then what reason can we allege for enacting a law to reverse those judgements? Unless indeed we plead that we were out of our minds. We have no other excuse to offer.—

Read another statute.

The Law

Nor shall it be lawful to propose a law applying to a particular man, unless the same be applicable to all Athenian citizens, except by the votes of not less than six thousand citizens voting in the affirmative by ballot.

It forbids the introduction of any law that does not affect all citizens alike,—an injunction conceived in the true spirit of democracy. As every man has an equal share in the constitution generally, so this statute asserts his equal share in the laws. You know as well as I do for whose sake Timocrates introduced his law; but, leaving those names out of the question, we have his own admission that his law is not of universal application, for he added a clause excepting from its operation tax-farmers, lessees, and their sureties.—When, sir, there are certain persons whom you have put outside your law, you cannot claim that you have made the same law for all alike.

And there is another thing that you cannot say,— that of all persons punished by imprisonment tax farmers are the greatest offenders and do us the gravest wrong, and that that is why you do not give them the benefit of your law. Surely men who are traitors to the commonwealth, men who maltreat their own parents, men who enter the market-place with unclean hands, offend far more heinously; and all those criminals are threatened with imprisonment by the standing laws, while your law offers them instant release. But here again you reveal the men in whose favour you moved your law. They got into our debt not by tax-farming, but by embezzling, or rather by plundering, our money; and that, I warrant you, is the true reason why you had no consideration for the tax-farmers.