Concerning the Sons of Lycurgus
1
Demosthenes to the Council and the Assembly sends greeting.
I sent you the previous letter about matters that concern myself, stating what steps I
thought in justice ought to be taken by you; in regard to these you will take favorable
action when it seems good to you. The message I now address to you I should not like you
to overlook or to hear it in a spirit of contentiousness, but with due regard to the
justness of it. For it happens that, although sojourning in an out-of-the-way place, I
hear many people censuring you for your treatment of the sons of Lycurgus.
[
2]
Now I should have sent you the letter merely out of regard for
those services that Lycurgus performed during his lifetime, for which you would all, like
myself, be in justice grateful if you would but do your duty. For Lycurgus, having taken a
post in the financial department of the government
2 at the outset of his career and
not being at all accustomed to draft documents pertaining to the general affairs of the
Greeks and their relations with their allies, only when the majority of those who
pretended to be the friends of democracy were deserting you, began to devote himself to
the principles of the popular party,
[
3]
not because from
this quarter opportunity was offering to secure gifts and emoluments, since all such
prizes were coming from the opposite party,
3 nor yet because he observed this policy to be the safer one, since
there were many manifest dangers which a man was bound to incur who chose to speak on
behalf of the people, but because he was truly democratic and by nature an honest man.
[
4]
And yet before his very eyes he observed those who
might have assisted the cause of the people growing weak with the drift of events and
their adversaries gaining strength in every way. None the less for all that, this brave
man continued to adhere to such measures as he thought were in the people's interest and
subsequently he continued to perform his duty unfalteringly in word and deed, as was clear
to see. As a consequence his surrender was straightway demanded,
4 as all men are aware.
[
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,
5 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,
6 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.
[
9]
So the explanation is left—what all would declare the conduct of vile
men—that so long as you have use for each official you seem to be concerned for
him but after that feel no obligation; for where else is one to expect that the gratitude
due from you to the dead will be shown, when he observes the opposite treatment meted out
to his children and his good name, which are the sole concerns of all men when facing
death, that it may continue to be well with them?
[
10]
And
assuredly, to appear to do these things for the sake of money is also unworthy of truly
honorable men, for it would be clearly inconsistent either with your magnanimity or with
your general principles of conduct. For instance, if it were necessary to ransom the
children from foreign captors by giving this sum out of the revenues, I believe you would
all be eager to do it; but when I observe you reluctant to remit a fine which was imposed
because of mere talk and envy, I do not know what judgement I can pass unless it be that
you have launched upon a course of utterly bitter and truculent hostility toward the
members of the popular party. If this be the case, you have made up your minds to
deliberate neither righteously nor in the public interest.
[
11]
I am amazed if none of you thinks that it is a disgraceful thing for the people of
Athens, who are supposed to be superior to all men in understanding and culture and have
also maintained here for the unfortunate a common refuge in all ages, to show themselves
less considerate than Philip, who, although naturally subject to no correction,
[
12]
nursed as he was, in licence, still thought that at the moment of
his greatest good fortune
7
he ought to be seen acting with the greatest humanity and did not venture to cast into
chains the men who had faced him in the battle line, against whom he had staked his all,
nor demand to know, “Whose sons are they and what are their
names?”
8 For unlike some of
your orators, as it appears, he did not consider it would be either just or creditable to
take the same action against all, but, taking into his reckoning the additional factor of
station in life,
9 he assorted his
verdicts accordingly.
[
13]
You, however, though Athenians and
partners in a culture which is thought capable of making even stupid people tolerable, in
the first place—and of all your actions this is the most
heartless—hold the sons in chains as a penalty for offences which certain
parties allege against the father
10; in the next place, you claim this action to be equality before the
law, just as if you were inspecting equality in the field of weights or measures and not
deliberating about men's ethical and political principles.
[
14]
In testing these, if the actions of Lycurgus seem honest and
public-spirited and inspired by loyalty, then it is justice that his sons should not only
meet with no harm at your hands, but with all the benefits imaginable; yet if his actions
seem quite the opposite, he ought to have been punished while he lived, and these children
should not thus incur your anger on the ground of charges someone prefers against the
father, because for all men death is an end of responsibility for all their offences.
[
15]
Consequently, if you are going to be so minded that
those who have conceived some grudge against those who espouse the cause of the people
will not be reconciled even with dead men, but will persist in maintaining their enmity
against the children, and if the people, in whose cause every friend of democracy labours,
shall remember their gratitude only so long as they can use a man in the flesh and
thereafter shall feel no concern, then nothing will be more miserable than to choose the
post of champion of the people.
[
16]
If Moerocles
11 replies that this view is too
subtle for his understanding, and that, to prevent them from running away, he put them in
chains upon his own responsibility, demand of him why in the world he did not see the
justice of this proceeding when Taureas, Pataecus, Aristogeiton and himself,
12 though they had been committed to prison, were not only not in chains but
would even address the Assembly.
[
17]
If, on the other hand,
he shall say that he was not then archon, he had no right to speak, at any rate according
to the laws.
13 Accordingly, how
can it be equal justice when some men are in office who have no right even to speak and
others are in fetters whose father was useful to you in numerous ways?
[
18]
I certainly cannot figure it out unless you mean to demonstrate this
fact officially—that blackguardism, shamelessness and deliberate villainy are
strong in the State and enjoy a better prospect of coming off safely, and that, if such
men happen to get into a tight place, a way out is discovered, but to elect to live in
honesty of principle, sobriety of life and devotion to the people will be hazardous and,
if some false step is made, the consequences will be inescapable.
[
19]
Furthermore, the fact that it is unjust to entertain concerning Lycurgus the opposite
opinion to the one you held while he lived, and that justice demands that you should have
more regard for the dead than for the living, and all such considerations I shall pass
over, for I assume them to be universally agreed upon. Of the children of others, however,
whom you recompensed for their fathers' good services I would gladly see you reminded; for
instance, the descendants of Aristeides, Thrasybulus, Archinus and many others.
14 Not by way of censure have I cited these examples,
[
20]
for so far am I from censuring as to declare it my belief that such
repayments are in the highest degree in the interest of the State, because you challenge
all men by such conduct to be champions of the people, when they observe that, even if
during their own lives envy shall stand in the way of their receiving merited honors, yet
their children, at any rate, will be sure to receive their due rewards at your hands.
[
21]
Is it not absurd, therefore, or rather even disgraceful, toward certain other men to keep
alive the goodwill justly due them, in spite of the fact that the times of their
usefulness are long past and after this interval you learn of their good deeds by hearsay
and have not assumed them from things of which you have been eye-witnesses, but toward
Lycurgus, whose political career and death are so recent,
[
22]
you do not show yourselves so ready to display even pity and kindness as you were at all
other times toward men whom you never knew and by whom you used to be wronged, and, worse
still, your vengeance is visited upon his children, whom even an enemy, if only he were
fair-minded and capable of reason, would pity?
[
23]
Moreover, I am amazed if any one of you is ignorant of this fact also, that it is not to
the interest of our political life, either, for this to become public knowledge, that
those who have established friendship in a certain other quarter
15 are sure to prosper in all
things and fare better and, if some mishap occurs, the ways of escape are easier, but
those who have attached themselves to the cause of the people will not only fare worse in
other respects but for them alone of all men calamities will remain irremediable. Yet it
is easy to demonstrate the truth of this,
[
24]
for who of you
does not know the incident of Laches
16 the son of Melanopus, whose
lot it was to be convicted in a court of law precisely as the sons of Lycurgus in the
present instance, but his entire fine was remitted when Alexander requested it by letter?
And again, that it happened to Mnesibulus
17 of Acharnae to be similarly convicted, the court condemning
him just as it has the sons of Lycurgus, and to have the fine remitted, and rightly too,
for the man was deserving?
[
25]
And none of those who are now
making such an outcry declared that by these actions the laws were being nullified. Quite
rightly so, for they were not being nullified, if it be true that all our laws are enacted
for the sake of just men and for the preservation of honest men, and that it is expedient
neither to render the calamities of the unfortunate perpetual nor for men to show
themselves void of gratitude.
[
26]
And furthermore, if it is
expedient for these principles to hold true, as we would declare, not only were you not
nullifying the laws where you released those men, but you were preserving the lifework of
those men who enacted the laws, first, by releasing Laches in compliance with the request
of Alexander and, secondly, by restoring Mnesibulus to his rights because of the sobriety
of his life.
[
27]
Beware of demonstrating, therefore, that to acquire some outside friendship
18 is more profitable than to give
one's self in trust to the people and that it is better to remain in the ranks of the
unknown than to become known as a man who in public life consults the interests of you,
the majority. For although it is impossible for one who recommends policies and
administers the commonwealth to please everyone, yet if a man, actuated by loyalty, has at
heart the same interests as the people, he has a right to security of person. Otherwise
you will teach everyone to serve the interests of others rather than those of the people
and to shun recognition for doing any of those things that are to your advantage.
[
28]
In short, it is a reproach common to all citizens, men
of
Athens, and a misfortune of the State as a
whole, that envy should be thought to be stronger among you than the grace of gratitude
for services performed, and the more so because envy is a disease but the Graces
19 have
been assigned a place among the gods.
[
29]
Furthermore, I am not going to omit the case of Pytheas
20 either, who was a friend of the people down to his entrance
into public life but after that was ready to do anything to injure you. For who does not
know that this man, when, under the obligation to serve you, he was entering upon public
life, was being hounded as a slave and was under indictment as an alien usurping the
rights of a citizen and came near being sold by these men whose servant he now is and for
whom he used to write the speeches against me,
[
30]
but since
he is himself now practising what he then accused others of doing, is in such easy
circumstances as to keep two mistresses, who have escorted him—and kind it is of
them—on the way to death by consumption,
21 and to be able to discharge a
debt of five talents more easily than he could have produced five drachmas previously, and
besides all this, with the permission of you, the people, not only participates in the
government, which is a common reproach to all, but also performs on your behalf the
ancestral
22 sacrifices at
Delphi?
[
31]
So, when it is possible for all to behold object-lessons of such a kind and on such a
scale, from which everyone would conclude that it does not pay to espouse the cause of the
people, I begin to fear that some day you may become destitute of men who will speak on
your behalf, especially when of the friends of the people some are being taken away by
man's natural destiny,
23
by accident, and by the lapse of time, such as Nausicles, Chares, Diotimus, Menestheus,
and Eudoxus,
24 and also Euthydicus, Ephialtes and Lycurgus,
25 and others you citizens have cast forth, such as Charidemus,
Philocles
26 and myself,
[
32]
men to whom not
even you yourselves believe others to be superior in loyalty, though if you think certain
others are equally loyal I feel no jealousy,
27
and it would be my desire, provided only that you will deal fairly with them and that they
shall not meet with the treatment accorded us, that their number may be legion. When
however, you give the public such object-lessons as the present, who is there who will be
willing to give himself to this line of duty with sincere intentions toward you?
[
33]
Yet surely you will find no dearth of those who will
at least pretend to do so, for in the past there has been none. Heaven forbid that I
should live to see them unmasked like those men, who, though now openly pursuing policies
they then repudiated, feel before none of you either fear or shame! You should ponder
these facts, men of
Athens, and not treat
loyal men with disdain nor be persuaded by those who are leading the country on the way to
bitter hatreds and cruelty.
[
34]
For our present difficulties
require goodwill and humanity far more than dissension and malice, an excess of which
certain persons turn to their advantage, pursuing their business
28 to your
detriment with the expectation of returns, of which I pray that their calculations may
cheat them. If any one of you ridicules these warnings he must be filled with a profound
simplicity. For if, observing that things have happened which no one could have expected,
he imagines things could not happen now which have happened already before now, when the
people were set at variance with those who spoke in their behalf by men suborned for the
purpose, has he not taken leave of his senses?
[
35]
If I were present in person I should be trying to explain these matters to you by word of
mouth, but since I am in such a plight as I pray may be the lot of anyone who has uttered
falsehoods against me to my ruin, I have sent my message in the form of a letter, in the
first place, having supreme regard for your honor and your advantage and, in the second,
because the same goodwill that I felt toward Lycurgus during his lifetime I believe it
right to show that I feel also toward his sons.
[
36]
If it
has occurred to anyone that I have a great abundance
29 of troubles of my own, I should not
hesitate to say to him that I am as much concerned to defend your interests and to forsake
none of my friends as I am about my own deliverance. Therefore, it is not out of the
abundance of my troubles that I do this, but, actuated by one and the same earnestness and
conviction, I devote my efforts to furthering both these interests of mine and those of
yours with a single purpose, and the abundance I possess is of such a kind as I pray may
abound for those who plot any evil against you. And on these topics I have said enough.
[
37]
This complaint, inspired by goodwill and affection, though now in outline only, I would
gladly enlarge upon a little later in a long letter, which, if only I am alive, you may
expect, unless justice shall be done me by you before that time, you who, O—what
shall I say so as to seem neither to offend nor to fall short of the truth ?—you
all too unfeeling men, who neither before the rest of the world nor before yourselves feel
shame, who upon the same charges upon which you acquitted Aristogeiton have banished
Demosthenes,
[
38]
and the privileges which those who dare to
set your authority at naught are permitted to have without your leave you do not grant to
me, to enable me, if I can, by calling in the sums owing me and levying contributions
30 upon my friends, to adjust my obligations to you and not,
with old age and exile as the guerdon of my past toils in your behalf, be seen wandering
from place to place on alien soil, a common reproach to all who have wronged me.
[
39]
Although it was my wish that my return home might come about by way of an ordinance
31 of
gratitude and magnanimity on your part and that for myself I might secure a dismissal of
the false charges unjustly lodged against me, asking only for immunity from imprisonment
for such time as you have granted for the payment of the fine, yet these requests you do
not grant and you demand, as it is reported to me, “Well, who is preventing him
from being here and transacting this business?”
[
40]
It is knowing how to feel shame, men of
Athens, it is faring in a way unworthy of my public services in your
behalf, and it is the loss of my property through those men on whose account I was
persuaded in the first place to become surety for their payments in order that they might
not have to pay double the sum of which they were unable to pay the original amount.
32 From these men, could I but return with your goodwill,
I might possibly recover part, even if not all, so as not to live sordidly the rest of my
life, but if I come on such terms as those who talk in this way demand of me, I shall be
the victim at one and the same time of ignominy, destitution and fear.
[
41]
None of these considerations do you take into account but, grudging me the paltry words
of a decree and an act of kindness,
33 you will allow me to perish, if it so
happen, through your inaction, for I could appeal to no others but you. In that day you
will say that I have been shamefully mistreated, I know for a certainty, when it will do
neither you nor myself any good, for assuredly you do not expect that I have funds apart
from my real and personal property, from which I am separated; the rest of my assets I
wish to assemble if in a spirit of humanity instead of spitefulness you will but give me
leave to attend to this business unmolested.
34
[
42]
Neither will you ever show that I received money from
Harpalus, for neither was I tried and proved guilty nor did I take money, and if you are
looking for excuse to the notorious decision of the Council or to the Areopagus,
35 recall to mind the trial of Aristogeiton
36 and hide your
heads in shame
37; because I
have no milder injunction for those who have committed this offence against me.
[
43]
For surely you will not claim it was just, after information was
laid in the very same words by the same Council, for that man to be exonerated and me to
be ruined; you are not so void of reason. For I do not deserve it; I am not that kind of a
person nor worse than he, though I am unfortunate, thanks to you, I admit, for why not
unfortunate when on top of my other calamities I must compare myself with Aristogeiton,
and to make matters worse, a ruined man with one who has secured acquittal?
[
44]
And do not assume from these words that it is anger that moves me, because I could not
feel that way toward you. To those who are wronged, however, it brings a certain relief to
tell their sorrows, just as it relieves those in pain to moan, because toward you I feel
as much goodwill as I would pray you might have toward me. I have made this plain in
everything and shall continue to do so,
[
45]
for I have been
resolved from the beginning that it is the duty of every man in public life, if only he be
a fair-minded citizen, so to feel toward all his fellow-citizens as children ought to feel
toward their parents, and, while praying that he may find them perfectly reasonable, yet
to bear with them in a spirit of kindliness as they are
38; because defeat under such
circumstances is judged among right-minded men to be an honorable and befitting victory.
Farewell.