51
Why, then, he will ask, do you not indict me for non-insertion in the register, seeing that I am a debtor, and not registered? Because the law ordains that indictments for non-insertion shall be lodged, not against those who are debtors and not registered, but against those who, although they have been registered and have not paid their debt, nevertheless have their names erased.
51
(To the clerk.) Take the law, please, and read it.
51
The Law
52
You hear the law, men of the jury, hear that it expressly declares that, if any one of those indebted to the treasury shall have his name erased without having discharged his debt to the state, an indictment for non-insertion in the register may be brought against him before the Thesmothetae, but not against a debtor who has not been registered. Against persons of this class it ordains that there shall be a criminal information and other legal penalties. But why do you, Theocrines, try to teach me all the ways in which one may avenge oneself upon one’s enemies, instead of making a defence in the action in which you have come into court?
53
Moerocles,We know nothing more of Moerocles and his decree than is told in this oration. men of the jury, who proposed the decree against those who injure merchants, and who persuaded, not you alone, but your allies as well, to organize a sort of police to repress the wrongdoers, will not be ashamed presently on behalf of Theocrines to speak in opposition to his own decree.
54
On the contrary, he will have the audacity to advise you that you ought not to punish, but to acquit, the one who has thus manifestly been convicted of lodging false denunciations against the merchants; as if his measures for purging the sea had no other purpose than that voyagers who had come safely through the dangers of the open sea might pay money to these people in the harbor; or as if it were any advantage to the merchants that, after completing a long voyage without mishap, they should fall into the hands of Theocrines.
