[25]
Moreover you should grasp this fact, that
Solon, who framed these and most of our other laws, was a very different kind of
legislator from the defendant, and provided not one, but many modes of procedure
for those who wish to obtain redress for various wrongs. For he knew, I think,
that for all the citizens to be equally clever, or bold, or moderate folk, was
impossible. If, then, he was going to frame the laws to satisfy the moderate
man's claim to redress, many rascals, he reflected, would get off scot-free, but
if he framed them in the interests of the bold and the clever speakers, the
plain citizen would not be able to obtain redress in the same way as they would.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.