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Let me give an instance. When Tisis of Agryle brought in an inventory of the estate of Euthycrates, amounting to more than sixty talents, on the grounds of its being public property, and again later promised to bring in an inventory of the estate of Philip and Nausicles saying that they had made their money from unregistered mines, this jury were so far from approving such a suggestion or coveting the property of others that they immediately disfranchised the man who tried to slander the accused and did not award him a fifth part of the votes.No other details are known of the cases mentioned here. An Epicrates of Pallene is known to have been trierarch in 342 B.C. (IG. 2.803 e), and may be the man referred to in connection with the second of the two trials.
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Or take a recent instance, if you like, the verdict given by the jury last month, surely a most commendable decision. I refer to the case of Lysander, who reported that the mine of Epicrates of Pallene had been bored beyond the boundaries. It had already been worked for three years and virtually the richest men in Athens had shares in it. Lysander promised to secure three hundred talents for the city, since that, he claimed, was the sum which they had made from the mine.
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In spite of this the jury were governed, not by the accusers promises, but by the claims of justice. They decided that the mine was within its proper limits, and in one and the same verdict assured the safety of the men’s estates and guaranteed their working of the mine for the remainder of the period. That is why the excavation of new mines, neglected previously because men were afraid, is now in progress, and the city’s revenues from these are again being increased, revenues which some of our orators impaired by misleading the people and subjecting the mine-workers to tribute.
