Against Timarchus (111-115)

then you in astonishment cried, How ‘a man and a woman,’ what are you talking about? after a little he went on: Don’ t you understand, said he, what I mean? The man is our friend Hegesandrus there, a man now, though he too used to be a woman, Laodamas’ s woman; as for the woman, she is Timarchus yonder. How the money is being stolen I will tell you. He then proceeded to give a full account of the matter, and in a way that showed that there was no guesswork about it. After he had given you this information, What is it, fellow citizens, said he, that I advise? If the senate sustains the charge against this man and expels him, and then hands him over to the courts, give the senate the usual testimonial;[*] but if they fail to punish him, refuse to give it, and lay up this thing against them for that day.

after this, when the senate had returned to the senate chamber,[*] they expelled him on the preliminary ballot, but took him back on the final vote.[*] I must tell you, however unpleasant it is to mention it, that for their failure to hand him over to the courts, or even to expel him from the senate chamber, they failed to receive the usual testimonial. I beg you therefore, fellow citizens, not to present the spectacle of showing resentment toward the senate, and depriving five hundred citizens of a crown because they failed to punish the defendant, and then letting him go free yourselves; and I beg you not to preserve for the popular assembly a public man who has proved useless to the senate.

But, you say, though such is his record in the offices filled by lot, he has been a better man in the elective offices.[*] Why, who of you has not heard of his notorious conviction for stealing? You will recall that you sent him as an inspector of the mercenary troops in Eretria.[*] He and he only of the board of inspectors acknowledged that he had taken money, and made no defence against the charge, but immediately admitted his guilt, making his plea only as to the penalty. You punished those who denied their guilt with a fine of a talent apiece, but him with half a talent. Whereas the laws command that thieves who admit their guilt shall be punished with death; it is those who deny their guilt that are to be put on trial.

In consequence of this experience so great became his contempt for you that immediately, on the occasion of the revision of the citizen lists, he gathered in two thousand drachmas. For he asserted that Philotades of Cydathenaeon, a citizen, was a former slave of his own, and he persuaded the members of the deme to disfranchise him. He took charge of the prosecution in court,[*] and after he had taken the sacred offerings in his hand and sworn that he had not taken a bribe and would not,

and though he swore by the usual gods of oaths[*] and called down destruction on his own head, yet it has been proved that he received twenty minas from Leuconides, the brother-in-law of Philotades, at the hands of Philemon the actor, which money he soon spent on his mistress Philoxene. And so he broke his oath and abandoned the case. To prove that I speak the truth please call Philemon, who paid over the money, and Leuconides, the brother-in-law of Philotades, and read the copy of the agreement by which he effected the sale of the case.