shall one and all have their names everywhere cancelled by the Superintendents of Revenue and by the Council in accordance with the foregoing, wherever any public record of their offence be found; and any copies of such records which anywhere exist shall be produced by the Thesmothetae and other magistrates. This shall be done within three days after the consent of the People has been given. And no one shall secretly retain a copy of those records which it has been decided to cancel, nor shall he at any time make malicious reference to the past. He who does so shall be liable to the punishment of fugitives from the court of the Areopagusi.e. be put to death, if he is ever apprehended within the dominions of Athens.: to the end that the Athenians may live in all security both now and hereafter.

By this decree you reinstated those who had lost their rights; but neither the proposal of Patrocleides nor your own enactment contained any reference to a restoration of exiles. However, after you had come to terms with Sparta and demolished your walls, you allowed your exiles to return too.In April, 404. The Thirty were installed by the following summer on the motion of Dracontides, which the presence of the Spartan garrison made it difficult to reject. In the winter of 404 a number of the exiled democrats under Thrasybulus seized Phyle on the northern frontier of Attica; then they moved on Peiraeus and fortified Munychia. By February 403 they were strong enough to crush the Thirty, the remnants of whom fled to Eleusis, whence they were finally extirpated in 401. Then the Thirty came into power, and there followed the occupation of Phyle and Munychia, and those terrible struggles which I am loath to recall either to myself or to you.

After your return from PeiraeusFebruary 403. you resolved to let bygones be bygones, in spite of the opportunity for revenge. You considered the safety of Athens of more importance than the settlement of private scores; so both sides, you decided, were to forget the past. Accordingly, you elected a commission of twenty to govern Athens until a fresh code of laws had been authorized; during the interval the code of Solon and the statutes of Draco were to be in force.

However, after you had chosen a Council by lot and elected Nomothetae,Further details are given in the decree which follows. The ordinary Nomothetae were chosen by lot from the Heliasts of each year to revise the existing laws and examine proposed additions. The Nomothetae here mentioned are an entirely distinct body. They were 500 in number and elected by the demes. In conjunction with the Council they were to revise the laws. It was found, however, that the anarchy of the previous year had rendered a vast number of citizens technically liable to punishment. This meant that a very extensive modification of the existing legal code was necessary. A committee was therefore selected from the 500 Nomothetae by the Council to draft a fresh body of laws. Its recommendations were to be submitted to the Council and the remaining Nomothetae for approval. In the interval the laws of Solon and the θεσμοί of Draco dealing with homicide were to be in force. you began to discover that there were not a few of the laws of Solon and Draco under which numbers of citizens were liable, owing to previous events. You therefore called a meeting of the Assembly to discuss the difficulty, and as a result enacted that the whole of the laws should be revised and that such as were approved should be inscribed the Portico.The στοὰ βασίλειος in the Agora. Kindly read the decree.

Decree.—On the motion of TeisamenusOne of the 500 Nomothetae. the People decreed that Athens be governed as of old, in accordance with the laws of Solon, his weights and his measures, and in accordance with the statutes of Draco, which we used aforetime. Such further laws as may be necessary shall be inscribed upon tables by the Nomothetae elected by the Council and named hereafter, exposed before the Tribal Statutes for all to see, and handed over to the magistrates during the present month.

The laws thus handed over, however, shall be submitted beforehand to the scrutiny of the Council and the five hundred Nomothetae elected by the Demes, when they have taken their oath. Further, any private citizen who so desires may come before the Council and suggest improvements in the laws. When the laws have been ratified, they shall be placed under the guardianship of the Council of the Areopagus, to the end that only such laws as have been ratified may be applied by magistrates. Those laws which are approved shall be inscribed upon the wall, where they were inscribed aforetime, for all to see.

There was a revision of the laws, gentlemen, in obedience to this decree, and such as were approved were inscribed in the Portico. When this had been done, we passed a law which is universally enforced. Kindly read it. Law.—In no circumstances shall magistrates enforce a law which has not been inscribed.

Is any loophole left here? Can a single suit be brought before a jury by a magistrate or set in motion by one of you, save under the laws inscribed? Then if it is illegal to enforce a law which has not been inscribed, there can surely be no question of enforcing a decree which has not been inscribed.

Now when we saw that a great many citizens had been placed in a serious position either by previous laws or by previous decrees, we enacted the laws which follow as a safeguard against the very thing which is now going on; we wished to prevent anything of the kind happening, that is to say, and to make it impossible for anyone to prosecute from malice. Kindly read the laws.

Laws.—In no circumstances shall magistrates enforce a law which has not been inscribed. No decree, whether of the Council or Assembly, shall override a law. No law shall be directed against an individual without applying to all citizens alike, unless an Assembly of six thousand so resolve by secret ballot.A reference to ostracism.

What was needed to complete the list? Only the following law, which I will ask the clerk to read to you.

Law.—All decisions given in private suits and by arbitrators under the democracy shall be valid. But of the laws only those passed since the archonship of Eucleidesi.e. later than midsummer, 403. shall be enforced.

The validity of decisions given in private suits and by arbitrators under the democracy you upheld, gentlemen; and you did so to avoid the cancelling of debts and the reopening of such suits, and to ensure the enforcement of private contracts. On the other hand, in the matter of public offences dealt with by indictment, denunciation, information, or arrest, you enacted that only such laws should be enforced as had been passed since the archonship of Eucleides.

Now you decided that the laws were to be revised and afterwards inscribed that in no circumstances were magistrates to enforce a law which had not been inscribed: that no decree, whether of the Council or the Assembly, was to override a law: that no law might be directed against an individual without applying to all citizens alike: and that only such laws as had been passed since the archonship of Eucleides were to be enforced. In view of this, can any decree passed before the archonship of Eucleides, whatever its importance or unimportance, still remain in force? I for one think not, gentlemen. Just consider the matter for yourselves.

And now, what of your oaths? First, the oath in which the whole city joined, the oath which you swore one and all after the reconciliation:. . . and I will harbour no grievance against any citizen, save only the Thirty, the Ten,The board of ten set up by Lysander in Peiraeus. It was overthrown by Thrasybulus at the end of 404. The Eleven are, of course, the ordinary police-magistrates who had been compelled by the Thirty to do their bidding. and the Eleven: and even of them against none who shall consent to render account of his office. After swearing to forgive even the Thirty, whom you had to thank for sufferings untold, provided that they rendered account of themselves, you can have been in very little hurry to harbour grievances against the ordinary citizen. Again, what is the oath sworn by the Council when it takes office?

. . . and I will allow no information or arrest arising out of past events, save only in the case of those who fled from Athens.i.e. to Eleusis, with the surviving members of the Thirty, after their downfall in February 403. And what is your own oath as jurors, gentlemen?. . . and I will harbour no grievance and submit to no influence, but will give my verdict in accordance with the laws in force at the present time. Let those oaths help you to decide whether I am right when I say that I am championing yourselves and the laws.

And now, gentlemen, consider how my accusers stand with regard to the laws. They are prosecuting others; but what is their own position? Cephisius here purchased from the state the right to collect certain public rents, and obtained thereby a return of ninety minae from the farmers occupying the lands concerned. He then defaulted; and since he would have been placed in close confinement had he appeared in Athens

—it being laid down by law that any defaulting tax farmer may be so punished by the Council—he retired into exile. Owing, however, to the fact that you decided to apply only those laws passed since the archonship of Eucleides, Cephisius considers himself entitled to keep his profits from your lands. He is no longer an exile, but a citizen: no longer an outcast without rights, but an informer—and all because you are applying only the revised laws.

Then there is Meletus here. Meletus arrested LeonThe Leon here mentioned is almost certainly the Leon of Salamis whom Socrates, at the risk of his own life, refused to arrest when ordered to do so by the Thirty. Some 1500 persons were executed without a trial during the reign of terror (Isoc. 7.67). under the Thirty, as you all know; and Leon was put to death without a trial. But we find it laid down that there shall be no distinction between the principal who plans a crime and the agent who commits it; the law not only existed in the past, but still exists and is still enforced because of its fairness. Quite so; but Leon’s sons cannot prosecute Meletus for murder, because only laws passed since the archonship of Eucleides can be enforced. The fact of the arrest, of course, is not denied, even by Meletus himself.The argument of this paragraph is not stated as clearly as it might be. Andocides means: (a) after the amnesty special legal measures were taken to ensure against prosecution for crimes committed before 403; therefore, although (b) the principle that βούλευσις φόνου ἑκουσίου deserves the same punishment as φόνος ἑκούσιος itself has always been, and still is, recognized as valid, Meletus cannot be accused of having caused Leon’s death.