146
My part consists in exposing one who is doing away with all these principles, to you who are empowered to chastise him it remains for you, as a service to yourselves and Heaven, to take vengeance on Leocrates. For while crimes remain untried the guilt rests with those who committed them, but once the trial has taken place it falls on all who did not mete out justice. Do not forget, gentlemen, that each of you now, though giving his vote in secret, will openly proclaim his attitude to the gods.
147
I believe, gentlemen, that all the greatest and most atrocious crimes are today included within the scope of your single verdict; for Leocrates can be shown to have committed them all. He is guilty of treason, since he left the city and surrendered it to the enemy; guilty of overthrowing the democracy, because he did not face the danger which is the price of freedom; guilty of impiety, because he has done all in his power to have the sacred precincts ravaged and the temples destroyed. He is guilty too of injuring his forbears, for he effaced their memorials and deprived them of their rites, and guilty of desertion and refusal to serve, since he did not submit his person to the leaders for enrollment.
148
Shall this man then find someone to acquit him or pardon his deliberate misdeeds? Who is so senseless as to choose to save Leocrates at the cost of leaving his own security at the mercy of men who wish to be deserters, to choose to pity him at the cost of being killed himself without pity by his enemies, or to grant a favor to the betrayer of his country and so expose himself to the vengeance of the gods?
