[27]
Why need one repeat
that order is everywhere maintained by the laws and by obedience to the laws?
You yourselves have the sole right of judging our case, though every Athenian
was in the ballot and all, I am sure, wanted to be allotted to this court. Why
is this? Because by lot you were chosen and then assigned to this case. Those
are the instructions of the law. And then will you, who owe your presence here
to the laws, allow a man, who flouts the laws by word and deed, to escape from
your grasp? Will none of you show anger or bitterness at this shameless
ruffian's defiance of the laws?
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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