3
Diognides and Antidorus the metic are impeached on a charge of hiring out flute-girls at a higher price than that fixed by law, Agasicles of PiraeusAgasicles, according to Harpocration and Suidas (sv. Ἀγασικλῆς), though an alien, bribed the people of Halimus to enroll him in their deme. The former adds that Dinarchus wrote a speech prosecuting him for this. See Din. Fr. 7. because he was registered in Halimus, and Euxenippus because of the dreams which he claims to have had; though surely not one of these charges has anything to do with the impeachment law.
4
And yet in public trials, gentlemen of the jury, the jury should refuse to listen to the details of the prosecution until they have first considered the point at issue, and also the written statement of the accused, to see if the pleas are legally valid. It is certainly wrong to maintain, as Polyeuctus did in his speech for the prosecution, that defendants should not insist on the impeachment law; which lays it down that impeachments shall be reserved for the orators themselves, when they speak against the interests of the people, but shall not apply to every Athenian.
5
With me this law would have first claim to notice; and a point, I think, which should be dwelt on as much as any, is how to ensure that the laws in a democracy are binding and that impeachments and other actions brought into court are legally valid. It was with this in view that you made separate laws covering individually all offences committed in the city.
