[8]
Coming now
to the law which explicitly denies to the Council the right to ask a reward, if
they have not built the warships, it is worth while to hear the defence that he
will set up, and to get a clear view of the shamelessness of his behavior from
the arguments that he attempts to use. The law, he says, forbids the Council to
ask for the reward, if they have not built the ships. But, he adds, the law
nowhere prohibits the Assembly from giving it. “If I gave it at their
request, my motion was illegal, but if I have never mentioned the ships in the
whole of my decree, but give other grounds for granting a crown to the Council,
where is the illegality of my motion?”
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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