[23]
If you are
wise, you will bear this in mind. Turn a deaf ear to those who profess to be
devoted to you, and take your own precautions to ensure that you grant to no one
the power to make your laws null and void, especially to no one of those who
pretend to be able to speak and legislate in the interests of the masses. It is
preposterous that your ancestors faced death to save the laws from destruction,
but that you do not even punish those who have offended against the laws; that
you set up in the market-place a bronze statue of Solon, who framed the laws,
but show yourselves regardless of those very laws for the sake of which he has
received such exceptional honor.
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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