Against Timocrates

I do not think, gentlemen of the jury, that even Timocrates can lay the blame of the present prosecution upon anyone else: he has brought it on himself. Moved by desire to deprive the State of a large sum of money, he has most illegally introduced a law which is both inexpedient and iniquitous. You shall presently learn in detail, if you will listen to me, in how many respects this law, if ratified, will be injurious and detrimental to the common weal; but there is one result, the most important and the most obvious that I can name, which I shall not hesitate to put before you. For it is the decision that you pronounce on oath on every question which is annulled and made worthless by the law proposed by the defendant; and his object is not any public benefit to the State,—that is impossible, for his law robs those Courts of Justice, which are the pillars of the constitution, of all power to impose the additional penalties attached by the laws to transgressions,—but that certain of those men who have long battened on your substance and pillaged your property may not even refund moneys which they were openly caught in the act of embezzling. Also it is so much easier to curry favour privately with certain persons than to stand up in defence of your rights that, while Timocrates has their fee in his pocket, and never introduced his law until he got it, I,so far from getting any reward from you, am risking a thousand drachmas in your defence.