[28]
So, I suppose, if one should desert one's post when the city itself was not in danger, but was rather endangering another people,1 a law would have been made condemning that as a grievous crime; but if one deserted the city itself when the city itself was in danger, we should have had no law against this! Certainly we should, if there had been a thought that any of the citizens would ever commit such a crime.
1 i.e., we are to suppose, forsooth, that desertion is a crime only when the city is so far from being in danger as to be at war with another city.
Lysias. Lysias with an English translation by W.R.M. Lamb, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1930.
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