97
Men of Athens, is not the provision that all rewards granted by the people shall be valid contradicted by the clause that no one shall be immune, no one, that is, of those to whom the people has granted immunity? That is plain enough, at any rate. But it is not so in the alternative law which my friendApsephion. here proposes, and which confirms what you have granted, and provides a fair ground of action against those who have imposed upon you, or have subsequently injured you, or are generally undeserving; so that you will thus prevent anyone you please from retaining his grant. Read the law.
97
[The law is read]
98
You hear the law, Athenians, and you understand that it enables the deserving to retain their rewards, and those who are judged otherwise to be deprived of any privilege they have unjustly secured; for the future everything is left in your hands, as is right, to grant or to withhold. Now I do not think that Leptines will deny that this law is sound and just, or, if he does, that he will be able to prove it. But perhaps he will try to lead you astray by repeating what he said before the junior archons.At the ἀνάκρισις or preliminary trial. For he alleged that the publication of this amended law was a mere trick, and that should his own law be repealed, this one would never be passed.
99
Now, to avoid dispute, I will not press the point that the old law of Solon, in accordance with which the junior archons have notified these amendments to you, clearly enjoins that if the law of Leptines is repealed by your vote, the alternative law shall be valid.We may conjecture that the old law (that if the original statute was condemned, the amendment baecame law ipso facto) had in practice been superseded. I will pass to another point. Leptines, in saying this, obviously admits that our law is better and fairer than his own, but bases his argument on the way in which it is to be passed.
