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[67]
Surely, men of Athens,
you ought to feel indignation rather toward those who are rascals in wealth than
toward those who are such in poverty. In the case of the latter the pressure of
their needy state affords them some excuse in the eyes of those who look on the
matter with human sympathy, whereas those who, like this fellow, are rascals
while possessing abundance, could find no reasonable excuse to offer, but will
be shown to act as they do from a spirit of shameful greed and covetousness and
insolence, and a resolve to make their own plots stronger than the laws. Not one
of these things is to your interest, but rather that the weak, if he suffers
wrong, should be able to get redress from the wealthy. And he will be able, if
you punish those who are thus manifestly rascals while possessing wealth.
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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