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[5]
Now I would have written this letter, as I said at the outset, for the sake of Lycurgus
alone, but over and above that, believing it to be to your interest to know the criticisms
being circulated among those who go abroad, I became all the more eager to dispatch the
letter. I beg of those who for private reasons were at odds with Lycurgus to endure to
hear what in truth and justice may be said in his behalf; for be well assured, men of
Athens, that, as things now are, the city is
acquiring an evil reputation because of the way his sons have been treated.
[6]
For none of the Greeks is ignorant that during the lifetime of
Lycurgus you honored him extraordinarily,1 and, though many charges were brought against him by those
who were envious of him, you never found a single charge to be true, and you so trusted
him and believed him to be truly democratic beyond all others that you decided many points
of justice on the ground that “Lycurgus said so,” and that sufficed
for you. This would certainly not have happened unless it had seemed to you that he was so
honest.
[7]
Today, therefore, all men, upon hearing that his
sons are in prison, while pitying the dead man, sympathize with the children as innocent
sufferers, and reproach you bitterly after a manner that I, for one, should not dare to
write down for, touching the reports which make me vexed at those who utter them, and
which I contradict as best I can, trying to come to your defence, I have written these
only to the extent of making it clear to you that many people are blaming you, since I
believe it to be to your interest to know this, though to quote their words verbatim I
judge would be offensive.
[8]
Apart from mere abuse, however,
I shall reveal all that certain people say and which I believe it to your advantage to
have heard. For, after all, no one has supposed that you laboured under a misunderstanding
and deception concerning the truth so far as Lycurgus himself is concerned, for the length
of time during which, where subject to scrutiny,2 he never was
found guilty of any wrong toward you in either thought or deed and the fact that no human
being could ever have accused you of indifference to any other action of his naturally
eliminate the pretext of ignorance.
1 In addition to offices of trust Lycurgus several times received the honor of a crown and of statues at the public expense.
2 There was a board of thirty men at Athens who acted as accountants and auditors. Ten of the thirty were called εὔθυνοι; any official who handled public money could be charges before them with bribery or misappropriation of funds. All accounts were subject to their inspection. Cf. Aristot. Ath. Pol. 48.3-4; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 53.2.
Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
