Against Ctesiphon (31-35)

The Laws

Recall now what has been said: the lawgiver directs that after approval in court[*] those appointed by the tribes shall hold office; but the tribe Pandionis appointed Demosthenes an officer, a Builder of Walls; and he has received for this work from the general treasury nearly ten talents. Another law forbids crowning an official before he has rendered his accounts, and you have sworn to vote according to the laws; but yonder politician has moved to crown the man who has not yet rendered his accounts, and he has not added when he shall have rendered account and submitted to audit and I convict him of the unlawful act, bringing as my witnesses the laws, the decrees, and the defendants. How could one more clearly prove that a man has made an unlawful motion?

Furthermore, I will show you that the proclamation of the crown, as proposed in his decree, is to be made in an illegal manner. For the law expressly commands that if the Senate confer a crown, the crown shall be proclaimed in the senate-house, and if the people confer it, in the assembly, and nowhere else. Read me the law.

Law

This, fellow citizens, is an excellent law. For it seems that it was the idea of the lawgiver that the public man ought not to be thinking of outsiders as he receives his honors, but to be well content with honor received in the city itself and from the people; and that he ought not to treat such proclamations as a source of revenue. So thought the lawgiver. But Ctesiphon how? Read his decree.

Decree

You hear, fellow citizens, how the lawgiver commands that the man who is crowned by the people be proclaimed among the people, on the Pnyx, at a meeting of the assembly, and nowhere else; but Ctesiphon, in the theater—not only overriding the laws but also changing the place; not when the Athenians are in assembly, but when tragedies are being performed; not in the presence of the people, but in the presence of the Hellenes, that they also may know what sort of man we honor.

Having, then, made a motion that is so manifestly illegal, he will call Demosthenes as his ally and bring up the artifices of rhetoric for the assault on the laws. These tricks I will reveal and of these I will forewarn you, lest you be taken unawares and deceived.

They will not be able to deny that the laws forbid the man who is crowned by the people to be proclaimed outside the assembly, but they will present for their defence the Dionysiac law, and will use a certain portion of the law, cheating your ears.