9
And indeed it would be strange, gentlemen of the jury, that you should be incensed with those who are unable to pay their contributions to the special levies from their own means, and should confiscate their estates on the ground of default, but yet should decline to punish those who are keeping your own property, when you are not only to be deprived of your money but also to be more sorely troubled by their enmity.
10
For as long as they are conscious of keeping your property they will never desist from their malignity towards you, since they will believe that only the calamities of the city can relieve them of their embarrassments.
11
I consider, gentlemen of the jury, that the issue involved in his case ought to be not merely one of money, but that his life also should be at stake. For it would be a strange thing, when those who connive with the thieves in a private larceny are to be subject to the same penalty,Cf. Plat. Laws 12.955b. that this man, conniving with Ergocles in a theft of the city’s property and receiving bribes at your expense, should not incur the same punishment, but should win the fortune left by his accomplice as a prize for his own wickedness. These men deserve your wrath, gentlemen of the jury.
12
For when Ergocles was on his trial, they went about among the people saying that they had bribed five hundred of the Peiraeus party and sixteen hundred of the party of the city. They professed to rely on their money rather than to fear the results of their own misdeeds.
13
Well, in that case you plainly showed them,—and if you are well advised you will make it clear likewise to all men today,—that there is no sum of money large enough to deflect you from the punishment of those whom you may take in the act of wrongdoing, and that by no means will you permit them to pillage and steal your property with impunity.
