116
Nor was he content to be guilty of this iniquity in respect of future offences only; he released even the man who had already committed his crime, and already been punished. I, however, used to suppose that legislators were concerned with the future, making laws to direct how people should behave, how every thing should he managed, and what should be the proper penalties for different transgressions. That is what is meant by making the laws the same for all citizens. To frame statutes for past transactions is not to legislate, but to rescue malefactors.
117
You may judge that what I am telling you is true by reflecting that, if Euctemon had been convicted on the charge of illegal legislation, Timocrates would never have proposed his law, and the State would never have wanted his law; his friends would have been content to plunder the property of the State, without any concern for other people. But in fact Euctemon was acquitted and therefore Timocrates demands that your decision, the judgement of the court, and every other statute shall be invalidated, and that he and his law shall alone be authoritative.
118
—And yet, Timocrates, laws which are still authoritative have given supreme authority to the gentlemen of the jury. The laws permit them, after hearing the case, to adjust their condemnation of the offender to their view of the gravity of the offence; light for light, heavy for heavy. Whenever the phrase is, what penalty, corporal or pecuniary, should be awarded, the award is at the discretion of the jury.
119
You, then, abolish the corporal penalty by remitting imprisonment. For whom? For thieves and temple-robbers, for parricides, murderers, shirkers, and deserters. All such men you protect by your law. And yet does not a man who, under a free constitution, legislates, not to protect the temples, not to protect the people, but to protect such people as I have named, deserve to suffer the extreme penalty?
