61
Perhaps you will not attempt to argue thus, Demosthenes, but will say that of those whom the council has reported up till now the rest have admitted that the penalty which it imposed was deserved, whereas you alone have protested against it. But you alone, of all those ever reported, asked these men of your own accord to be your judges and court of inquiry. You proposed the decree against yourself and made the people witness of the agreement, defining the penalty for yourself as death, if the council should report that you had taken any of the money brought into the country by Harpalus.
62
And yet in the past, Demosthenes, you proposed that the council of the Areopagus should have power over all these men, and the rest of Athens too, to enforce the laws of the land and punish any who transgressed them. It was you who surrendered the whole city into the hands of this council which you will presently tell us is oligarchic. By the terms of your decree the death sentence has been inflicted on two citizens, a father and a son, who were given over to the executioner.
63
One of the descendants of Harmodius was imprisoned in pursuance of your order. These gentlemen, acting on the council's report, tortured and killed Antiphon.Demosthenes (Dem. 18.132) confirms this and says that Antiphon promised Philip that he would burn the dockyards in the Piraeus. Demosthenes caught him there and brought him before the people, who at first acquitted him. But the Areopagus intervened and he was later executed. You expelled CharinusCharinus, a figure of little importance, is mentioned as a traitor in the speech against Theocrines, which was attributed by Dionysius to Dinarchus but has survived among the works of Demosthenes (Dem. 58.38). from the city for treason on the strength of the council's reports and punishments. After proposing this treatment for yourself also, are you now overriding the decree of your own accord? Surely that is neither just nor lawful.
