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[213] and when the jury replied that they did, he said that in his opinion money had been invented by private persons for private transactions, but laws were the currency1 of the State; and therefore if a man debased that currency, and introduced counterfeit, the jury had graver reason to abhor and punish that man than one who debased the currency of private citizens.

1 The play upon words between νόμος “law” and νόμισμα “coin” is impossible to render in English.

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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