Epichares Against Theocrines, a Criminal Information (41-45)

For my part I hold that it is absolutely your duty, men of the jury, to fix your attention on the matter at issue and on nothing else, and then, if my plea seems to you just and in accordance with law, to give me your support, caring nothing for the fact that it is not Demosthenes who prefers the charges, but a mere stripling. You are bound also to hold that the laws are not more binding when one presents them to you carefully in rhetorical language than when they are recited in the speech of every day. No; they are the same laws; and you should all the more readily give aid to the young and inexperienced, since they are less likely to lead you astray.

For that the case is the exact opposite of what my opponent asserts,—that it is not he, but I, who am the victim of a cabal, and that, after certain persons had declared that they would aid me in my suit, I have been betrayed because of the cliques formed by these men,—all this will be made clear to you in the following way. Let the crier here call Demosthenes. He will not come forward. The reason is, not that I have been induced by certain persons to lodge criminal information against this man, but that he and the one just now mentioned have come to terms with one another. To prove that this is true, I will compel to testify both Cleinomachus, who brought them together, and Eubulides, who was with them in Cynosarges[*];

and I will further produce what you will all acknowledge when you have heard it, to be, not a weaker, but a stronger proof that my statement is true. For Theocrines here, when prosecuting for illegal action this abominable person, as he will presently call him, and the one who is the cause of his present troubles, openly discharged him from the indictment, in which he had fixed the penalty at ten talents. How? By doing nothing startling, but the very thing that others of his stamp have done. When the indictment was called, someone filed an affidavit for postponement, declaring that Demosthenes was ill—Demosthenes, who was going about and abusing Aeschines. This enemy of his, then, this fellow has let off, and he neither at the time filed a counter-affidavit, nor did he subsequently call the case for trial. Are not these men manifestly hoodwinking you, when you entertain the idea that they are personal foes?

(To the clerk.) Read the depositions.

The Depositions

It is not right, then, men of the jury, that you any more than we should listen to those who will declare that they are going to speak in the interest of Theocrines because of their enmity to Demosthenes. No; if they are in truth enemies of Demosthenes, you should bid them bring their indictments against him, and not permit him to propose illegal decrees. These people too are clever, and you are more apt to give them credence. They will not, however, take the course which I mention. For what reason? Because they claim to be at war with one another, although they are not at war.

With reference to the enmity of these people you could give me more exact information than I can give you. I should be glad, however, to ask Theocrines in your presence, if only he would give me an honest answer, what he would have done—he who declares that he has been assigned the duty of putting a stop to the proposers of illegal decrees—if anyone, after speaking to the whole body of citizens in the assembly and winning their assent, had proposed a decree, permitting those who had lost their civic rights and those indebted to the public treasury to indict, denounce, and lodge criminal informations—in a word to do all the things which the law now forbids them to do—