[37]
And he did this, men of the jury,
though he was resident at Athens, and had a wife and children here, and although
the laws have prescribed the severest penalties if anyone resident at Athens
should transport grain to any other place than to the Athenian market; besides,
he did this at a critical time, when those of you who dwelt in the city were
having their barley-meal measured out to them in the Odeum,1 and those who dwelt in Peiraeus were receiving their loaves at
an obol each in the dockyard and in the long-porch,2 having their meal measured out to them a gallon3 at a time, and being nearly trampled to death.In proof that my words are true, take, please, the
deposition and the law.“
Deposition
”“
Law
”
1 We learn from Aristoph. Wasps 1109, that the Odeum, built by Pericles as a music school, near the great theatre, was sometimes used as a law-court, and Pollux 8.33, states that suits concerning grain were decided there. Compare Dem. 59.52. It is easy, therefore, to assume that distribution of grain may have been made there.
2 The long-porch was a warehouse for grain in the Peiraeus.
3 Literally a half-sixth （i.e. one-twelfth） of a medimnus, a measure containing about twelve gallons.
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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