I myself, Athenians, knew that Leocrates avoided the dangers to which his country called
 him and deserted his fellow citizens. I knew that he had utterly disregarded your
 authority and was chargeable with all the articles of the indictment. Therefore I
 instituted these proceedings. It was not out of hatred in the least nor with the slightest
 wish to be contentious that I undertook this trial; but I thought it monstrous to allow
 this man to push into the market place and share the public sacrifices, when he had been a
 disgrace to his country and to you all. A just citizen will not let private enmity induce him to start a public prosecution
 against one who does the state no harm. On the contrary, it is those who break his
 country’s laws whom he will look on as his personal enemies; crimes which affect the
 public will, in his eyes, offer public grounds for enmity towards the criminals. All public trials should therefore rank as important, but
 particularly this present one, in which you are about to cast your vote. For when you give
 a verdict on a charge of illegal proposals you merely rectify one single error, and in
 preventing the intended measure your scope depends upon the extent to which the decree in
 question will harm the city. But the present case is not concerned with some trifling
 constitutional issue, nor yet with a moment of time; our city’s whole life is at stake,
 and this trial will leave a verdict to posterity to be remembered for all time. So dangerous is the wrong which has been done and so far-reaching that no indictment
 adequate could be devised, nor have the laws defined a punishment for the crimes. What
 punishment would suit a man who left his country and refused to guard the temples of his
 fathers, who abandoned the graves of his ancestors and surrendered the whole country into
 the hands of the enemy? The greatest and final penalty, death, though the maximum
 punishment allowed by law, is too small for the crimes of Leocrates. The reason why the penalty for such offences, gentlemen, has never been recorded is not
 that the legislators of the past were neglectful; it is that such things had not happened
 hitherto and were not expected to happen in the future. It is therefore most essential
 that you should be not merely judges of this present case but lawmakers besides. For where
 a crime has been defined by some law, it is easy, with that as a standard, to punish the
 offender. But where different offences are not specifically included in the law, being
 covered by a single designation, and where a man has committed crimes worse than these and
 is equally chargeable with them all, your verdict must be left as a precedent for your
 successors.