[18]
Now
perhaps Leptines will try to divert your attention from these points and assert
that at present the public services fall upon the poor, but that under his law
they will be performed by the wealthiest class. At first hearing, the plea seems
to have some weight; but examine it strictly and the fallacy will be exposed.
For there are, as you know, among us some services that fall upon resident
aliens and others that fall upon citizens, and the exemption, which Leptines
would remove, has been granted in the case of both. For from special
contributions for war or for national defence and also from the equipment of
war-galleys, rightly and justly in accordance with earlier laws, no one is
exempt, not even the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogiton, whom Leptines has
specially named.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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