[125]
For they established it by decree and oath that anyone who found a person aspiring to tyranny or attempting to betray the city or overthrow the democracy should be guiltless if he killed him.1 They thought it better that imagined culprits should perish than that they themselves should have a real experience of slavery, holding that citizens must simply live in such a manner as to avoid the very suspicion of any of these crimes. Please take the decree.“Decree”
1 The decree of Demophantus is mentioned below （Lyc. 1.127）. It was passed in 410 B.C. on the restoration of the democracy and not, so far as is known, re-enacted after the downfall of the Thirty. It is quoted in full by Andocides （Andoc. 1.96 sq.）.
Lycurgus. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes, 2, with an English translation by J. O. Burtt, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.
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