118
Nay, rather have they come to find out about you, whether you not only know how to make good laws, but also are able to distinguish between good conduct and bad; whether you know how to honor good men; and whether you are willing to punish those who make their own life a reproach to the city. I will first speak to you about the defence.
119
The eminent orator Demosthenes says that you must either wipe out your laws, or else no attention must be paid to my words. For he is amazed, he says, if you do not all remember that every single year the senate farms out the tax on prostitutes, and that the men who buy this tax do not guess, but know precisely, who they are that follow this profession. When, therefore, I have dared to bring impeachment against Timarchus for having prostituted himself, in order that I may deprive him of the right to address the people in assembly, Demosthenes says that the very act complained of calls, not for an accuser’ s arraignment, but for the testimony of the tax-gatherer who collected this tax from Timarchus.
120
Now, fellow citizens, see whether the reply that I make seems to you frank and straightforward. For I am ashamed in the city’ s behalf, if Timarchus,the counsellor of the people, the man who dares to go out into Hellas on their embassies, if this man, instead of undertaking to clear his record of the whole matter, shall ask us to specify the localities where he plied his trade, and to say whether the tax collectors have ever collected the prostitutes’ licence from him.
