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THE

ORATIONS

OF

DEMOSTHENES

AGAINST

TIMOCRATES, ARISTOGITON, APHOBUS,

ONETOR, ZENOTHEMIS, APATURIUS, PHORMIO, LACRITUS,
PANTÆNETUS, NAUSIMACHUS, BŒOTUS, SPUDIAS, PHÆNIPPUS,
AND FOR PHORMIO.

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HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

LONDON:

R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,

BREAD STREET HILL.

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THE

ORATIONS OF DEMOSTHENES.

THE ORATION AGAINST TIMOCRATES.

THE ARGUMENT.

This was a speech in support of an indictment preferred against Timocrates for passing an improper law. It was composed by Demosthenes for Diodorus, the same person for whom he wrote the speech against Androtion, and who in this case, as in the former, was associated in the prosecution with his friend Euctemon. The circumstances of the case were as follows:

Hostilities had broken out during the Social War between Athens and the Persian king; the Athenians sent an embassy to Mausolus, Prince of Caria, to complain of some attack which he had made upon their islands in the Archipelago. At the head of the embassy were Androtion, Melanopus, and Glaucetes, who, sailing in a ship of war, captured on their way a merchant ship of Naucratis, and brought it home with them to the Piræus. Naucratis being an Egyptian city, in the dominions of the Persian king, the vessel was condemned by the Athenians as a lawful prize, and the cargo ordered to be sold. The proceeds, nine talents and a half, instead of being paid at once, as they should have been, into the public treasury, were kept by the ambassadors in their own hands. After some lapse of time, the government being in want of money, inquisitors were appointed to discover all concealed property belonging to the state. Euctemon gave information, in consequence of which the ambassadors were required to pay this sum of nine talents and a half. Not having paid it at the close of the year, they became chargeable with double the debt, and, in default of payment, were liable to imprisonment. At this crisis their friend Timocrates came forward with a law, framed, as the prosecutor contends, for the sole purpose of helping them out of their difficulty. The law which he proposed and contrived to pass was to the following effect :That any person who had been, or should hereafter be condemned to imprisonment for default in paying a debt to the state, should be allowed to put in bail, and respited until the ninth Prytanea (or Presidency); if the debt was not then paid by him or by his bail, he should be imprisoned, and the property of the bail should be conVOL. IV.

B

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