33
Now these regulations of the law have long been in force; but you went further and added a new law, after that charming gymnastic exhibition which Timarchus gave in an assembly of the peopleSee Aeschin. 1.26.; for you were exceedingly ashamed of the affair. By the new law, for every meeting of the assembly one tribe is to be chosen by lot to have charge of the speaker’ s platform, and to preside.We can only conjecture that the members of this tribe were given the block of seats immediately in front of the platform, and were expected to enforce the commands of the presiding officers, the nine πρόεδροι. And what did the proposer of the law prescribe? That the members of the tribe should sit as defenders of the laws and of the democracy; for he believed that unless we should summon help from some quarter against men who have lived such a life, we should not be able even to deliberate on matters of supreme importance.
34
For there is no use in attempting, fellow citizens, to drive such men from the platform by shouting at them, for they have no sense of shame. We must try, rather, to break them of their habits by pains and penalties; for so only can they be made endurable.
34
The clerk shall therefore read to you the laws that are in force to secure orderly conductBy orderly conduct Aeschines means orderly conduct in private life. The editor who composed (or compiled) the law given in Aeschin. 1.35 understood him to be speaking of conduct on the platform. The law that Aeschines caused to be read would contain the prohibitions that he has been discussing in Aeschin. 1.28-32. on the part of our public men. For the law that introduced the presidency of a tribeThe new law described in Aeschin. 1.33. has been attacked in the courts by Timarchus here, in conspiracy with other men like himself, as being inexpedient, their object being to have license to speak, as well as to behave, as they choose.
35
Laws
