Chapter VII: The Grecian Orators (3)

When he began his litigation we thought he was deprived of
his senses; never imagining that the same man, who at one
time claimed to be heir to a third part, and at another
time an hear to the whole, could gain any credit before
this tribunal; but when we came into court, although we
urged more arguments than our adversary and spoke with
justice on our side, yet we lost our cause; not through any
fault of the jury, but through the villainy of Melas and
his associates, who, taking advantage of the public
disorders, assumed a power of seizing possessions to which
they had no right, by swearing falsely for each other. By
such men, therefore, were the jury deceived; and we,
overcome by this abominable iniquity, were stripped of our
effects; for my father died not long after the trial and
before he could prosecute, as he intended, the perjured
witnesses of his antagonist.

On the very day when Dicaeogenes had thus infamously
prevailed against us, he ejected the daughter of
Cephisophon, the niece of him who left the estate, from the
portion allotted to her; took from the wife of Democles
what her brother had given her as co-heiress; and deprived
both the mother of Cephisodotus and the unfortunate youth
himself of their whole fortune. Of all these he was at the
same time guardian and spoiler, next of kin, and cruelest
enemy; nor did the relation which he bore them excite in
the least degree his compassion; but the unhappy orphans,
deserted and indigent, became destitute even of daily
necessities.

Such was the guardianship of Dicaeogenes their nearest
kinsman! who gave to their avowed foes what their father
Theopompus had left them, illegally possesses himself of
the property which they had from their maternal uncle and
their grandfather; and (what was the most open act of
cruelty) having purchased the house of their father and
demolished it, he dug up the ground on which it stood, and
made that handsome garden for his own house in the city.

Still further; although he receives an annual rent of
eighty minas from the estate of our uncle, yet such are his
insolence and profligacy that he sent my cousin,
Cephisodotus, to Corinth as a service attendant on his
brother Harmodius; and adds to his other injuries this
cruel reproach, that he wears ragged clothes and coarse
buskins; but is not this unjust, since it was his own
violence which reduced the boy to poverty?

On this point enough has been said, I now return to the
narration from which I have thus digressed. Menexenus then,
the son of Cephisophon, and cousin both to this young man
and to me, having a claim to an equal portion of the
inheritance, began a prosecution against those who had
perjured themselves in the former cause, and convicted
Lycon, whom he had first brought to justice, of having
falsely sworn that our uncle appointed this Dicaeogenes
heir to his whole estate; when, therefore, this pretended
heir was disappointed in his hopes of deluding you, he
persuaded Menexenus, who was acting both for our interest
and his own, to make a compromise, which, though I blush to
tell it, his baseness compels me to disclose.

What was their agreement?

That Menexenus should receive a competent share of the
effects on condition of his betraying us, and releasing the
other false witnesses, whom he had not yet convicted; then,
injured by our enemies, and by our friends, we remained
with silent indignation; but you shall hear the whole
transaction from the mouths of witnesses.

[Evidence]

Nor did Menexenus lose the reward of his perfidy; for, when
he had dismissed the persons accused, and given up our
cause, we could not recover the promised bribe from his
seducer whose deceit he so highly resented, that he came
over again to our side.

We, therefore, justly thinking that Dicaeogenes had no
right to any part of the inheritance, since his principal
witness had been actually convicted of perjury, claimed the
whole estate as next of kin to the deceased; nor will it be
difficult to prove the justice of our claim; for, since two
wills have been produced, one of an ancient date, and the
other more recent; since by the first, which Proxenus
brought with him, our uncle made the defendant heir to a
third part of his fortune, which will Dicaeogenes himself
prevailed upon the jury to set aside; and since the second,
under which he claims the whole has been proved invalid by
the conviction of the perjured witnesses, who swore to its
validity; since, I say, both will have been shown to be
forged, and no other testament existed, it was impossible
for any man to claim the property as heir by appointment,
but the sisters of the deceased, whose daughters we
married, were entitled to it as heirs by birth.

These reasons induced us to sue for the whole as next of
kin, and each of us claimed a share; but when we were on
the point of taking the usual oaths on both sides, this
Leochares put in a protestation that the inheritance was
not controvertible; to this protestation we took
exceptions, and having begun to prosecute Leochares for
perjury, we discontinued the former case. After we had
appeared in court, and urged the same arguments on which we
have now insisted, and after Leochares had been very
loquacious in making his defense, the judges were of
opinion that he was perjured, and as soon as this appeared
by the number of pellets, which were taken out of the urns,
it is needless to inform you what entreaties he used both
to the court and to us, or what an advantage we might then
have taken; but attend to the argument which we have made,
and upon our consenting that the Archon should mix the
pellets together without counting them, Dicaeogenes
undertook to surrender two-thirds of the inheritance, and
to resign them without any dispute to the sisters of the
deceased, and for the full performance of this undertaking,
Leochares was his surety, together with Mnesiptolemus the
Plotian; all which my witnesses will prove.

[Evidence]

Although we had been thus injured by Leochares, and had it
in our power, after he was convicted of perjury, to mark
him with infamy, yet we consented that judgment should not
be given, and were willing to drop the prosecution upon
condition of recovering our inheritance; but after all this
mildness and forbearance we were deceived, judges, by these
faithless men; for neither has Dicaeogenes restored to us
the two-thirds of his estate, conformably to his agreement
in court; nor will Leochares confess that he was bound for
the performance of that agreement. Now if these promises
had not been made before five hundred jurymen and a crowd
of hearers, one cannot tell how far this denial might have
availed him; but, to show how falsely they speak, I will
call some witnesses who were present both when Dicaeogenes
disclaimed two-thirds of the succession and undertook to
restore them undisputed to the sisters of our uncle, and
when Leochares engaged that he should punctually perform
what he had undertaken; to confirm his evidence, judges, we
entreat you, if any of you were then in court, to recollect
what passed, and, if our allegations are true, to give us
the benefit of your testimony, for, if Dicaeogenes speaks
the truth, what advantage did we reap from gaining the
cause, or what inconvenience did he sustain by losing it?

If, as he asserts, he only disclaimed the two-thirds
without agreeing to restore them unencumbered, what has he
lost by relinquishing his present claim to an estate the
value of which he has received? For he was not in
possession of the two third parts, even before we succeeded
in our suit, but had either sold or mortgaged them; it was
his duty, however, to return the money to the purchasers
and to give us back our share of the land; since it was
with a view to this that we, not relying singly upon his
own engagement, instead upon his finding a surety. Yet,
except two small houses without the walls of the city, and
about sixty acres of land in the plain, we have received no
part of our inheritance; nor did we care to eject the
purchasers of the rest lest we should involve ourselves in
litigation; for when, by the advice of Dicaeogenes, and on
his promise not to oppose our title, we turned Micio out of
a bath which he had purchased, he brought an action against
us and recovered forty minas.

This loss, judges, we incurred through the perfidy of
Dicaeogenes; for we, not imagining that he would recede
from an agreement so solemnly made, assured the court that
we would suffer any evil if Dicaeogenes should warrant the
bath to Micio; not that we depended on his own word, but we
could not conceive that he would betray the sureties who
had undertaken for him; yet this very man, who disavowed
all pretensions to these two-thirds, and even now admits
his disavowal, had the baseness, when he was vouched by
Micio, to acknowledge his warranty; while I, unhappy man,
who had not received a particle of my share, was condemned
to pay forty minas for having ousted a fair purchaser and
left the court oppressed by the insults of this
Dicaeogenes. To prove the transaction I shall call my
witnesses.

[Evidence]

Thus have we been injured, judges, by this man; whilst
Leochares, who was bound for him and has been the cause of
all our misfortunes, is confident enough to deny what has
been proved against him; because his undertaking was not
entered in the register of the court; now, judges, as we
were then in great haste, we had time to enter part only of
what had been agreed on, and took care to provide faithful
witnesses of all the rest; but these men have a convenient
subterfuge: what is advantageous to them they allow to be
valid although it be not written, but deny the validity of
what may be prejudicial to their interests unless it be in
writing; nor am I surprised that they refuse to perform
their verbal promises since they will not act conformably
to their written agreements.

That we speak truly, an undeniable proof shall be produced:
Dicaeogenes gave my sister in marriage with a portion of
forty minas to Protarchides of Potamos; but, instead of
paying her fortune in money he gave her husband a house
which belonged to him in Ceramicus; now she had the same
right with my mother to a share of the estate; when
Dicaeogenes, therefore, had resigned to the women
two-thirds of the inheritance, Leochares told Protarchides
in what manner he had become a surety, and promised in
writing to give him his wife's allotment if he would
surrender to him the house which he had taken instead of
the portion; Protarchides, whose evidence you shall now
hear, consented; but Leochares took possession of his house
and never gave him any part of the allotment.

[Evidence]

As to the repairs of the bath and the expenses of building,
Dicaeogenes has already said, and will probably say again,
that we have not reimbursed him, according to our
engagement, for the sum which he expended on that account,
for which reason he cannot satisfy his creditors nor give
us the shares to which we are entitled. To answer this, I
must inform you that, when we compelled him in open court
to disclaim this part of the inheritance, we permitted him,
by the advice of the jury, to retain the products of the
estate, which he had enjoyed for so long, by way of
compensation for his expense in repairs and for his public
charges; and some time after, not by compulsion, but of our
own free will, we gave him a house in the city, which we
separated from our own estate and added to this third part.

This he had as an additional recompense for the materials
which he had bought for his building; and he sold the house
to Philonicus for fifty minas; nor did we make him this
present as a reward of his probity, but as a proof that our
own relatives, how dishonest soever, are not undervalued by
us for the sake of lucre; and even before, when it was in
our power to take ample revenge of him by depriving him of
all his possession, we could not act with the rigor of
justice, but were contented with obtaining a decree for
part of our own property; whilst he, when he had procured
an unjust advantage over us, plundered us with all possible
violence, and now strives to ruin us, as if we were not his
kinsmen, but his inveterate foes.

We will now produce a striking instance of our candor and
of his knavery. When, in the month of December, judges, the
prosecution against Leochares was carried on with firmness,
both he and Dicaeogenes entreated me to postpone the trial
and refer all matters in dispute to arbitration; to which
proposal, as if we had sustained only a slight injury, we
consented; and four arbitrators were chosen, two by us, and
as many by them; we then swore, in their presence, that we
would abide by their award; and they told us that they
would settle our controversy, if possible, without being
sworn; but that, if they found it impossible to agree, they
would severally declare upon oath what they thought the
merits of the case. After they had interrogated us for a
long time, and inquired minutely into the whole
transaction, Diotamus and Melanopus the two arbitrators,
whom we had brought, expressed their readiness to make
their award, either upon oath or otherwise, according to
their opinion of the truth from the testimony of both
parties; but the other two, whom Leochares had chosen,
refused to join in any award at all; though one of them,
Diopithes, was a kinsman of Leochares, and an enemy to me
on account of some former disputes, and his companion,
Demaratus, was a brother of that Mnesiptolemus whom I
mentioned before as one of the sureties for Dicaeogenes;
these two decided against giving any opinion, although they
had obliged us to swear that we would submit to their
decision.

[Evidence]

It is abominable, then, that Leochares should request you
to pronounce a sentence in his favor which his own
relation, Diopithes, refused to pronounce; and how can you,
judges, with propriety decree for this man, when even his
friends have virtually decreed against him? For all these
reasons I entreat you, unless you think my request
inconsistent with justice, to decide this case against
Leochares.

As for Dicaeogenes, he deserves neither your compassion as
an indigent and unfortunate man, nor your indulgence as a
benefactor in any degree to the state; I shall convince
you, judges, that neither of these characters belongs to
him; shall prove him to be both a wealthy and a profligate
citizen, and shall produce instances of his base conduct
towards his friends, his kinsmen, and the public. First,
though he took from us an estate from which he annually
received eighty minas, and although he enjoyed the profits
of it for ten years, yet he is neither in possession of the
money nor will declare in what manner he has employed it.
It is also worthy of your consideration, that, when he
presided over the games of his tribe at the feast of
Bacchus he obtained only the fourth prize, and was the last
of all in the theatrical exhibitions and the Pyrrhic
dances: these were the only offices that he has served, and
these, too, by compulsion; and see how liberally he behaved
with so large an income! Let me add that in a time of the
greatest public calamity, when so many citizens furnished
vessels of war, he would not equip a single galley at his
own expense, nor even joined with another; whilst others,
whose entire fortune was not equal to his yearly rents,
bore that expensive office with alacrity; he ought to have
remembered that it was not his father who gave him his
estate, but you, judges, who established it by your decree;
so that, even if he had not been a citizen, gratitude
should have prompted him to consult the welfare of the city.

Again, when contributions were continually brought by all
who loved their country, to support the war and provide for
the safety of the state, nothing came from Dicaeogenes;
when Lechaeum indeed was taken, and when he was pressed by
others to contribute, he promised publicly that he would
give three minas, a sum less than that which Cleonymus the
Cretan voluntarily offered; yet even this promise he never
performed; but his name was hung up on the statues of the
Eponymi with an inscription asserting, to his eternal
dishonor, that he had not paid the contribution, which he
promised in public, for his country's service. Who can now
wonder, judges, that he deceived me, a private individual,
when he so notoriously deluded you all in your common
assembly? Of this transaction you shall now hear the proof.

[Evidence]

Such and so splendid have been the services which
Dicaeogenes, possessed of so large a fortune, has performed
for the city! You perceive, too, in what manner he conducts
himself towards his relatives, some of whom he has
deprived, as far as he was able, of their property; others
he has basely neglected, and forced, through the want of
mere necessaries, to enter into the service of some foreign
power. All Athens saw his mother sitting in the temple of
Illithyia, and heard her accuse him of a crime which I
blush to relate, but which he blushed not to commit. As to
his friends, he has now incurred the violent hatred of
Melas the Egyptian, who had been fond of him from his early
youth, by refusing to pay him a sum of money which he had
borrowed; his other companions he had either defrauded of
sums which they lent him, or has failed to perform his
promise of giving them part of his plunder if he succeeded
in his cause.

Yet our ancestors, judges, who first acquired this estate,
and left it to their descendants, conducted all the public
games, contributed liberally toward the expense of the war,
and continually had the command of galleys, which they
equipped: of these noble acts the presents with which they
were able, from what remained of their fortune after their
necessary charges, to decorate the temples, are no less
undeniable proofs, than they are lasting monuments of their
virtue; for they dedicated to Bacchus the tripods which
they won by their magnificence in their games; they gave
new ornaments to the temple of the Pythian Apollo, and
adorned the shrine of the goddess in the citadel, where
they offered the first fruits of their estate, with a great
number, if we consider that they were only private men, of
statues both in brass and stone. They died fighting
resolutely in defense of their country; for Dicaeogenes,
the father of my grandfather, Menexenus, fell at the head
of the Olysian legion in Spartolus; and his son, my uncle,
lost his life at Cnidos, where he commanded the Parhalian
galley.

His estate, O Dicaeogenes, thou hast unjustly seized and
shamefully wasted, and, having converted it into money,
hast the assurance to complain of poverty. How hast thou
spent that money? Not for the use of the state or of your
friends; since it is apparent that no part of it has been
employed for those purposes; not in breeding fine horses,
for thou never wast in possession of a horse worth more
than three minas; not in chariots, for, with so many farms
and so great a fortune, that never hadst a single carriage
even drawn by mules; nor hast thou redeemed any citizen
from captivity; nor hast thou conveyed to the citadel those
statues which Menexenus had order to be made for the price
of three talents, but was prevented by his death from
consecrating in the temple; and, through thy avarice, they
lie to this day in the shop of the statuary; thus hast thou
presumed to claim an estate to which thou hast no color of
right, and hast not restored to the gods the statues, which
were truly their own. On what ground, Dicaeogenes, canst
thou ask the jury to give a sentence in thy favor? Is it
because thou hast frequently served the public offices;
expended large sums of money to make the city more
respectable, and greatly benefited the State by
contributing bountifully towards supporting the war?
Nothing of this sort can be alleged with truth. Is it
because thou art a valiant soldier? But thou never once
could be persuaded to serve in so violent and so formidable
a war, in which even the Olynthians and the islanders lose
their lives with eagerness, since they fight for this
country; while thou, who art a citizen, wouldst never take
arms for the city.

Perhaps the dignity of thy ancestors, who slew the tyrant,
emboldens thee to triumph over us; as for them, indeed, I
honor and applaud them, but cannot think that a spark of
their virtue animates thy bosom; for thou hast preferred
the plunder of our inheritance to the glory of being their
descendant, and wouldst rather be called the son of
Dicaeogenes than of Harmodius; not regarding the right of
being entertained in the Prytaneum, nor setting any value
on the precedence and immunities which the posterity of
those heroes enjoy; yet it was not for noble birth that
Harmonius and Aristogiton were so transcendently honored,
but for their valor and probity; of which thou,
Dicaeogenes, hast not the smallest share.

LYCURGUS

Lycurgus, a pupil both of Plato and Isocrates, was born at Athens about the year 396 B.C., and died in 323 B.C. During the great struggle with Philip of Macedon, he allied himself with Demosthenes and became one of the leaders of the national party. He was a man of refined and artistic tastes, a patriot, and an orator. Only the conclusion of his speech is here given.

_Oration Against Leocrates._ Gentlemen, you have heard the
witnesses. It may well be that what I now declare will
rouse your indignation and your scorn of this Leocrates.
Not content to abscond alone with his wretched self and his
money, he must needs drag with him the ancestral faith,
today become your law because your ancestors kept it, the
establishment of the fathers and the heritage of him their
child, drag this to Megara, filch it from the land. He
hallowed not that sacred name of old, would tear it from
its home, make it forsake with him the temples and the
country once its own, as if in the land of the stranger it
could rise again, for him. Athena, with no Athens there! in
Megara! their land and their laws to be here! Why did your
fathers give to the land her name? Because her land was
here. In the name of Athena did they put their trust; she
abandons not her own. Leocrates, recreant to law and
tradition and religion, took from us all, as far as in him
lay, the help that is ours from on high. And not content
with all these grievous wrongs, he took the capital he had
withdrawn here and with it made shipments of grain from
Cleopatra in Epirus into Leucas and from there into
Corinth; this in violation of your law which lays so severe
a penalty on any man of Athens who shall ship grain to any
port but ours. Here then is your man; traitor in war;
lawbreaker in business; false to the faith and the land and
the law. Here he is in your jurisdiction: shall not his
doom be death? shall he not serve warning to others? If
not, then ye must be some listless men, whose wrath no
crime can rouse.

And now in what strains did Homer voice this theme? To your
fathers he was such a noble poet that they passed a law
that at every pan-Athenian festival, as the five years came
round, his epics alone should be delivered; thus bearing
witness to the world of Greece that the greatest of works
were the works for them. A salutary measure. Brevity is the
nature of the law. It may not instruct; it must simply
command. To the poets it must refer the life of man, to
portray the human spirit in its loftiest achievement, and
with the resistless argument of art our souls are swayed.
It is Hector who speaks rousing the Trojans in their
country's name:

When ye have reached the ships, fight onward,
ceaselessly striving:
What though the stroke of fate shall call some
man to his glory?
Where is the sting of death when a hero falls
for his country?
Wife and child and home are safe in the hour
that the Argives
Take to the ships once more and sail for the
land of their fathers.

With strains like these, men of Athens, ringing in the ears
of your sires, they could emulate the deeds of old; rising
to such heights of valor that not for their own native
State alone, but for all Hellas as a common fatherland,
they stood ready to offer up their lives. There on Marathon
they went into line in the face of the barbarians, bore
down all Asia in arms, the stake their lives alone, winning
security for Greece at large; not puffed up with the pride
of renown, but glad their work was worthy of its fame; of
Greece the champions, masters of the heathen worlds;
letting their deeds proclaim aloud with glory. Such was the
strenuous life they led in Athens in the great days of old
that once when the Lacedaemonians, valiant of men, were at
war with the Messinians, the god vouchsafed them a response
that bade them take a leader from our people, and then they
should conquer their enemies. If then divine judgment
declared in favor of our leadership, even for the children
of Hercules, lords for all time in Sparta, are we not
justified in our faith that once Athenian valor was
peerless? Who that is Greek does not know that they took
one Tyrtaeus for their general? And with him they overthrew
their enemies. And when the immediate peril was past, they
(with an admirable wisdom) turned the episode to the
advantage of their youth for all time. For when Tyrtaeus
left them, his elegiacs were still theirs. While other
poets have had no vogue among them, for him their
enthusiasm has been so great that they passed a law that
whenever a campaign was to open, all the man should be
called to the tent of the king to hear the strains of
Tyrtaeus. Nothing else, they thought, could make their men
so ready to lay down their lives for their country. And now
the day is come when we ourselves may need the sound of
those elegiacs which could make their way to the souls of
Spartans:

Blest is the brave: how glorious is his prize,
When at his country's call he dares and dies.
And sad the sight when, envious of the dead,
The man without a country begs his bread.
His poor old parents feebly toil along,
And little children who have done no wrong.
Spurned by the glance he meets at every turn,
He learns how hot the beggar's brand can burn.
His name is shame: the human form divine
Shows in its fall the soul's dishonored shrine.
Deeds in the dust of ages swiftly root,
And children's children reap the bitter fruit.
Strike for our country, comrades: on, ye brave!
Where is the man that dreads a patriot grave?
And ye, my younger brethren, side by side,
Shoulder to shoulder stand, whate'er betide.
The surging thrill ye feel before your foe
Swept o'er your father's heart-strings long ago.
To those whose days are longer in the land
Lend in the pride of youth the helping hand.
For shame to see an old man fall in front
When young men leave him there to bear the brunt:
Low in the dust the hoary hair is trailed;
And last is quenched a soul that never quailed,
Youth in its bloom should pluck the glowing bough
Whose leaves in glory wreathe a hero's brow.
Welcome to man, and fair in woman's eye,
The manly form that living dares to die.
Fate hangs apoise, with gloom and triumph fraught:
Up, hearts! and in the balance count we our lives as
naught.

Noble sentiments, gentlemen, that sway the soul of him that
hath ears to hear. The Spartans could hear them, and
receive such an impulse into manhood that they engaged with
us in a struggle for the hegemony. It was nature's rivalry;
for the noblest achievements have been wrought on either
side. Our ancestors had overthrown the barbarian who had
set the first hostile foot upon Attic soil; in them was
made manifest a manhood that no money could corrupt, a
valor no host countervail. In Thermopylae the
Lacedaemonians made their stand; and though the fate they
met was not like ours, yet there the ideals of human
devotion became reality.

And thus on the borne of life we can see the memorials of
the valor of our race graven with the chisel of truth unto
all Greek blood:

For Theirs:

Go stranger, tell the Spartans where we lie,
True to the land that taught her sons to die.

For Yours:

On Marathon when Athens fought alone,
Down to the dust the golden East was thrown.

These great memories, Athenians, are the glory of the men
who bequeathed them and of Athens the undying renown. Not
in this wise was Leocrates wrought. The fair fame of the
city, flower of the ages, deliberately hath he defiled. If
then he meet death at your hands, all Greece will feel the
abhorrence in which you hold such acts. If not, then are
the fathers of their ancient fame bereft by the same fell
stroke that wounds your brothers in citizenship. They who
revere not the men of old will follow the footsteps of this
man, quick to descry the path that shall lead them to favor
with our enemies, quick to perceive that shamelessness,
treachery, cowardice, need only a verdict from you to prove
their native worth.

One word more and I am done. To your sovereign chastisement
I commit the man who stands for Athenian annihilation. On
your own honor and in the presence of the gods you are to
give Leocrates his due. On the head of the criminal lies
the crime; but in a miscarriage of justice the jurors
delinquent become participant of guilt. Gentlemen, ye cast
the secret ballot now; but be not deceived: not one man
among you can deposit a vote that the eye of heaven does
not see. In my opinion, gentlemen, your verdict today
reaches all the greatest and most fearful crimes at once:
we behold them in the person of Leocrates; treason, for he
abandoned the city to subjugation by the enemy; apostasy,
for he played a coward's part in freedom's cause; sacrilege
for the groves might be felled, the temples razed, as far
as he was concerned; abomination, for the memorials of our
fathers might be swept away and the hallowed observance
abolished; desertion, for the nidering did not report for
duty in the line. Where then is the man who will vote to
clear him? Who is he that will show his sympathy with crime
that shows malice aforethought? Is there a man so bereft of
sense that he will set Leocrates free and so place his own
security at the mercy of men who would abandon him? that
out of pity for Leocrates he will take no pity on himself,
when his choice may mean death at the hands of the foe?
that by extending clemency to a traitor he will lay himself
open to the retribution of heaven?

In support of our country, religion and laws I have pleaded
this case, in righteousness and in fairness, indulging in
no irrelevant abuse of the man and making no charges
extraneous to the case. You must all be convinced that a
vote for the acquittal of Leocrates is a vote for the
conviction of the country; for in the life of nations
subjugation is the death. Here stand the two urns; one for
your undoing, one for your redemption: vote there for the
disruption of the country, vote here for her security and
prosperity. Think, men of Athens: the land and the trees
are pleading, the harbors, the walls are entreating, the
temples and shrines are in prayer. Save them. Make of
Leocrates an example. One final declaration of my
confidence: this pity that fills your hearts for the tears
you look upon can never avail to pervert your loyalty to
the law of the land, your devotion to the people of Athens.

AESCHINES

Aeschines, best known as an opponent of Demosthenes, was, in fact, a gallant solider, a man of much ability, and a really great orator. He was born in Attica, 389 B.C., five years before the birth of his famous rival, and died 314 B.C. His eloquence was of a high order, but his renown was tarnished by his defeat of Demosthenes in the contest on the proposition of Ctesiphon that Demosthenes should be awarded a golden crown for his patriotic services to the state. The speech delivered by Aeschines on that occasion was in many respects able, but he committed the grievous error of abusing his adversary and thus exposing his animosity.

_Against Crowning Demosthenes._ You see, Athenians, what
preparations are on foot, what forces are arrayed, what
appeals to the Assembly are being made by certain persons
to prevent the proper and ordinary course of justice from
having its effect in the city. For myself I came before
you, first, with a firm belief in the immortal gods, next,
with an abiding confidence in the laws and in you,
convinced that intrigues will not more avail with you than
these laws and the cause of justice.

I could indeed have fain desired that both in the Council
of Five Hundred and in the Assembly the presiding officers
had compelled conformity to established rules of debate,
and that the laws had been enforced concerning the orderly
deportment of public speakers which were laid down by
Solon. It should thus have been permitted to the oldest
citizens, as the laws prescribe, to ascend the platform
decorously, and without tumult or annoyance, according to
their experience, express their opinions upon what they
regarded most advantageous to the city. Afterwards, each
citizen in order of seniority should have in turn presented
his independent views upon every question.

In this way it seems to me would the affairs of the city
have been best conducted, and prosecutions have been
reduced within the smallest compass. Since, however, the
old recognized rules of procedure have been swept away, and
certain men recklessly introduce illegal propositions, and
certain others put them to the vote--men who have managed
to secure the presidency, not by just and proper means, but
taking possession of it by contrivance--it is brought to
pass that if any other senator shall succeed in reaching
the first place in due course of law and shall then attempt
to obtain the result of your votes properly, such an one is
denounced and impeached by the men who regard our
government as no longer a common inheritance but as their
own peculiar property. And when in this way, by reducing
private citizens to servitude and by securing absolute
power themselves, they have overthrown established legal
judgments and have passed decrees according to the dictates
of their passions, there shall be heard no longer that most
beautiful and proper invitation of the herald, "Who desires
to express his opinion, of citizens of fifty years of age
and upwards, and afterwards, of all other in rotation?"

Thus neither the laws, nor the senators, nor the
presidents, nor the presiding tribe itself a tenth part of
the city, can control the indecent conduct of these orators.

Such being the case, and such the position in which the
city is placed--and you must be convinced that this is
so,--one part at least of the constitution, if I know
anything of the matter, still survives--the right of
prosecution for proposing unconstitutional measures. Should
you destroy this right, or surrender it to those who will
destroy it, I prophesy that you will have unconsciously
given away to a few men almost our entire form of
government. For you must surely know, Athenians, that but
three forms of government exist, monarchy, oligarchy, and
democracy: the two former are administered according to the
feeling and opinions of those who are at the head of
affairs, but republics repose upon the authority of law.
Let no one of you, therefore, forget, but on the contrary
let him lay it carefully to heart, that when he enters this
tribunal for the trial of such an issue, on that day he is
called upon to cast his vote upon his own right of free
speech. Therefore was it that our old lawgivers placed in
the forefront of the juror's oath these words, "I will
render a verdict according to law," knowing well that when
the laws were jealously observed by the city free
institutions were safe.

Wherefore is it that, bearing these things in mind, you
should hold in abhorrence all who commit unconstitutional
acts, and that you should look upon no infraction of the
constitution as small or unimportant, but treat all as of
the gravest nature. Nor should you suffer any man to
deprive you of this most vital right--neither the
persuasions of the generals who for a long time past have
been at work with certain of our orators to overthrow the
constitution, nor the solicitations of strangers when those
whose administration has been illegal have brought up
hither to screen them from justice--but as each one of you
would blush to quit the ranks in which he was stationed on
the day of battle, so you should now blush at the thought
of abandoning the post in which you are placed by the laws
which are today the guardians of our institutions.

You must further bear in mind that your fellow citizens
have now entrusted to your keeping the city itself in thus
confiding the constitution to your charge; not only those
of them who are here present intent upon the course of this
trial, but those also who are necessarily absent upon their
private business. If, therefore, holding in due regard
these your fellow citizens, and remembering the oaths you
have sworn and the laws you are living under, you should
convict Ctesiphon for having introduced an unconstitutional
bill false in terms and injurious to the city, overturn,
Athenians, such unconstitutional enactments, confirm our
free institutions, and punish the men who have been
advising against the law and against the interests both of
the State and of yourselves. If in this frame of mind you
listen to the words which are about to be spoken, I well
know that your verdict will be in accordance with justice
and right, and that it will redound to the credit of
yourselves and of the whole community.

I have thus far spoken about the general nature of this
prosecution, and, I hope, with sufficient fairness. I now
desire to speak briefly about the laws which have been
passed in regard to persons who are accountable to the
state, against which the decree of Ctesiphon offends.

In former times it happened that men who had exercised the
highest employment and had been entrusted with the
management of the public revenues, although guilty therein
of the grossest corruption, would, by conniving with
certain orators both in the Senate and the General
Assembly, anticipate all examination into their accounts by
means of votes of condemnation and proclamations of thanks
in their behalf. Not only were citizens who attempted to
bring them to justice for the state of their accounts in
this way much perplexed, but the jurors themselves who were
to try the cause were reduced to a grave dilemma. And many
of these officials, although clearly proved to have
embezzled public moneys in the most flagrant way, were yet
permitted to leave the judgment-seat unpunished. And not
unreasonably. For the jurors were ashamed, it seems to me,
that it should appear the same man in the same city, and
perchance in the very same year, who had been proclaimed in
the Assemblies as worthy of being honored with a golden
crown by the people for his virtue and uprightness, should
a short time afterwards be brought to trial, and go forth
from our courts of justice convicted of fraud in his
accounts. So that the jurors were compelled, as it were, to
give their verdict not so much upon the crime which was
proven, as in regard to the honor of the city itself. And
hence it was that one of our lawgivers provided for this
very emergency by propounding a law--and a most admirable
one it was--by which the coronation of all persons liable
to account was distinctly forbidden. Notwithstanding the
passage of this law, evasions of it more efficacious than
the law itself have been invented, in ignorance of which,
unless they be explained to you, you would be entirely
deceived. This decree for the crowning of officials while
they were still liable to account were introduced contrary
to law by men not ill disposed by nature--if any one can be
well-disposed who thus acts illegally--and by way of a
slave to propriety they added to the propositions the
words, "after they shall have rendered a correct account of
their administration." The city, however, was injured in
the same way by this evasion, since the accounting was
equally forestalled by the panegyrics and votes of crowns;
and the propounder of the decree, by thus qualifying it,
admitted to his discredit that at the time of its proposal
he was conscious of an intended infraction of the law. But
this fellow Ctesiphon, men of Athens, at one bound clears
both law and qualification; for by his decree he asks that
Demosthenes, while actually in office, before he has
furnished any explanations or delivered in any accounts,
shall be crowned by the people! . . .

You have just heard, Athenians, that the law directs the
proclamation of one who is crowned by the people to be made
in the Pnyx at an Assembly of the people, and nowhere else.
Ctesiphon, however, not only transgresses the law by
directing it to be done in the theatre, thus changing the
place from that where the Athenians hold their Assembly,
but he commands it to take place, not before the people
alone, but in presence of the assembled Greeks, that they
may see along with us what manner of man it is whom we then
honor. . . .

Since, then, it is directed that those honored with a crown
by the Senate shall be proclaimed in the Senate Chamber,
and those crowned by the people in the Assembly, and it is
interdicted to those crowned by the tribes or demes to be
so proclaimed in the theatre, that no one by mean
solicitations for crowns and proclamations should thereby
obtain a spurious honor, and it is moreover forbidden by
the law that proclamation shall be made by any one unless
by the Senate, the people, the tribes, and the demes; if
all these be excepted, what remains but the case of crowns
conferred by foreign states? That this is manifestly so, I
shall convince you by the laws themselves. . . .

Besides it is enjoined by law that the crown of gold which
shall be proclaimed in the theatre in behalf of any one
shall be taken from him and consecrated to Athens. Who
would dare, however, from this, to accuse the people of
Athens of a sordid economy? Never was there a city, never
an individual, so destitute of generosity, as in the same
moment to proclaim, take away, and consecrate a crown of
their own bestowal! This consecration is doubtless directed
to be made because the crown has been conferred by
strangers, that no man may estimate a foreign honor as of
greater value than his country, and may not be tempted in
consequence to fail in his devotion to her. The crown
conferred by the people and proclaimed in the Assembly is
never consecrated, but on the contrary is permitted to be
enjoyed, not only by its recipient, but by his descendants,
that by preserving this memorial in their family they may
never become ill-disposed to their country. And this is the
reason why the lawmaker has prohibited the proclamation in
the theatre of a crown conferred by strangers unless
authorized by a decree of the people; the foreign city
which may desire so to honor one of your citizens shall
first through an embassy demand it of the people; and thus
he who is crowned shall owe higher debt of gratitude to you
who have permitted the proclamation than to those who have
presented him with the crown itself. . . .

I may here foretell the part that he will play when he sees
that you are in earnest in your endeavor to hold him to his
true course. Ctesiphon will introduce that arch-impostor,
that plunderer of the public, who has cut the constitution
into shreds; the man who can weep more easily than others
laugh, and from whom perjury flows in ready words!

He can, I doubt not, change his tone, and pass from tears
to gross abuse, insult the citizens who are listening
outside, and cry out that the partisans of oligarchical
power, detested by the hand of truth, are pressing round
the prosecutor to support him, while the friends of the
constitution are rallying round the accused. And when he
dares to speak so, answer thus his seditious menaces:
"What, Demosthenes, had the heroes who brought back our
fugitive citizens from Phyle been like you, our democratic
form of government had ceased to exist! Those illustrious
men saved the state exhausted by great civil disorders in
pronouncing that wise and admirable sentence 'oblivion of
all offenses.' But you, more careful of your rounded
periods than of the city's safety, are willing to reopen
all her wounds."

When this perjurer shall seek for credit by taking refuge
in his oaths, remind him that to the foresworn man who asks
belief in them from those he has deceived so often, of two
things one is needful, neither of which exists for
Demosthenes; he must either get new gods, or an audience
not the same. And to his tears and wordy lamentations, when
he shall ask, "Whither shall I fly, Athenians should you
cast me out, I have not where to rest," reply "Where shall
the people seek refuge, Demosthenes; what allies, what
resources, what reserve have you prepared for us? We all
see what you have provided for yourself. When you have left
the city, you shall not stop, as you would seem, to dwell
in Piraeus, but, quickly thence departing, you shall visit
other lands with all the appointments for your journey
provided through your corruption from Persian gold or
public plunder."

But why at all these tears, these cries, this voice of
lamentation? Is it not Ctesiphon who is accused, and even
for him may not the penalty be moderated by you? Thou
pleadest not, Demosthenes, either for thy life, thy
fortune, or thy honor! Why is he then so disquieted? About
crowns of gold and proclamations in the theatre against the
laws: the man who, were the people so insensate or so
forgetful of the present as to wish to crown him in this
time of public distress, should himself step forth and say,
"Men of Athens, while I accept the crown, I disapprove the
proclamation of the honor at a time like this: it should
not be in regard to things for which the state is now
mourning and while it is in the depth of grief." Would not
a man whose life was really upright so speak out; only a
knave who assumes the garb of virtue would talk as you do?

Let none of you, by Hercules, be apprehensive lest this
high-souled citizen, this distinguished warrior, from loss
of this reward should on his return home take his life. The
man who rates so low your consideration as to make a
thousand incisions on that impure and mortgaged head which
Ctesiphon proposes against all law to honor with a crown,
makes money of his wounds by bringing actions for the
effects of his own premeditated blows. Yes, that crown of
his so often battered, that perhaps even now it bears upon
it the marks of Meidias' anger, that crown which brings its
owner in an income, serves both for revenue and head! . . .

And can it be that he whom you have thought worthy by your
decree, of the honor of this crown, is so unknown to the
public which has been so largely benefited by him that you
must procure assistance to speak in his behalf? Ask of the
jurors whether they know Chabrias, Iphicrates and
Timotheus, and learn from them why they have honored and
erected statues to them? Will they not proclaim with one
voice that they rendered honor to Chabrias for his naval
victory near Naxos; to Iphicrates for having cut off a
Spartan corps; to Timotheus for his expedition to Corcyra;
to other heroes for their many glorious achievements? Ask
them now why Demosthenes is to be rewarded. Is it for his
venality, for his cowardice, for his base desertion of his
post in the day of battle? In honoring such an one will you
not dishonor yourselves and the gallant men who have laid
down their lives for you in the field? whose plaintive
remonstrances against the crowing of this man you may
almost seem to hear. Strange, passing strange, does it
seem, Athenians, that you banish from the limits of the
state the stocks and stones the senseless implements which
have unwittingly caused death by casualty; that the hand
which has inflicted the wound of self-destruction is buried
apart from the rest of the body; and that yet you can
render honor to this Demosthenes, by whose counsels this
last fatal expedition in which your troops were slaughtered
and destroyed was planned! The victims of this massacre are
thus insulted, in their graves, and the survivors outraged
and discouraged when they behold the only reward of
patriotic valor to be an unremembered death and a
disregarded memory! And last and most important of all
consequences, what answer shall you make to your children
when they ask you after what examples they shall frame
their lives? Is it not, men of Athens--you know it well--is
it not the palaestra, the seminary, or the study of the
liberal arts alone, which form and educate our youth. Of
vastly greater value are the lessons taught by these honors
publicly conferred. If a man proclaimed and crowned in the
theatre for virtue, courage, and patriotism when his
irregular and vicious life belies the honor, the young who
witness this are perverted and corrupted! In a profligate
and a pander, such as Ctesiphon, sentenced and punished, an
instructive lesson is given to the rising generation. Has a
citizen voted in opposition to justice and propriety, and
does he, on his return to his house, attempt to instruct
his son; disobedience surely follows, and the lesson is
justly looked upon as importunate and out of place.
Pronounce your verdict then, not as simple jurors, but as
guardians of the State, whose decision can be justified in
the eyes of their absent fellow citizens who shall demand a
strict account of it. Know ye not, Athenians, that the
people is judged by the ministers whom it honors; will it
not be disgraceful, then, that you shall be thought to
resemble the baseness of Demosthenes, and not the virtues
of your ancestors?