4
And observe, gentlemen, how, having suffered no punishment for that conduct, he has now turned his new office to similar account: first, he has been transcribing for four years, when he could have discharged his duty in thirty days; and second, although he had definite orders as to the texts that he had to transcribe, he assumed supreme authority over the whole code, and after handling more business than anyone had ever done before he is the only person who has held office without submitting to an audit.
5
Everyone else, with each new presidency,Every 35 days the presidency of the Council and the Assembly was taken over by a committee of 50 representatives of the 10 tribes. Magistrates on going out of office submitted their accounts to a board of 10 auditors (λογισταί); appointed by the Council, and some minor officers changed with each presidency. renders an account of his office; but you, Nicomachus, have not deigned to show your accounts for as much as four years; you, alone of the citizens, claim licence to hold office for a lengthy period, without either submitting to an audit, or obeying the decrees, or respecting the laws: you insert this, and erase that, and carry insolence to such a pitch that you regard the State’s property as yours, who are yourself its slave!
6
It is your duty, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, to remember what was the ancestry of Nicomachus, and also how ungrateful has been his treatment of you with his illegal acts, and to punish him: so, since you have not made him pay the penalty for each one of them, exact requital now, at any rate, for them all.
