to-morrow; assuredly, from no desire to increase the splendour of the festival, (for nothing was omitted or unprovided for,) but in order that this statute, which is now upon its trial, might be passed and become law without any mortal having notice or making opposition. Here is the proof. When the law-revisors were sitting, no law good or bad was brought in by any man concerning the matters specified, the ways and means and the Panathenæa; but concerning matters on which the decree did not require legislation and the laws forbid it, Timocrates, the defendant, passed his law without the least disturbance. The time named in his decree he held to be more binding than the time mentioned in the laws; and, while you were all enjoying a holiday, and though there is a law to do no wrong to one another either in public or in private at such a period, and to transact no business which does not relate to the festival, he did not scruple (as I shall show you) to inflict an injury, not upon a chance individual, but upon the whole commonwealth. Is it not shameful that a man, who knew the statutes, which you have all just heard, to be in force-who knew also of another statute declaring that no decree, even though it be legal, shall be of greater force than a law-should frame and propose to you a law in pursuance of a decree, which itself he knew to have been illegally moved? Is it not cruel, that, when the state has secured us all against the suffering of wrongs or grievances at this period by the institution of a holiday, she should herself have obtained no such security against Timocrates, but have suffered on this very holiday the most grievous wrong? For how could a private individual more deeply have injured the state, than by overthrowing the laws by which she is governed?

That the defendant has done none of the things which he was bound to do, and which the laws require, you may know by what I have already said. His offence however does not consist in this only, that he transgressed the time prescribed by the law, and destroyed the possibility of your deliberating and considering about these matters, by proceeding with his legislation during a holiday; but it consists further in this, that he has introduced a statute repugnant to all the existing statutes, as I will show you plainly in a few minutes. Take and read me first this statute, which expressly forbids

the introduction of any repugnant law, and, if such a one be introduced, requires that it should be indicted.1 Read.

THE LAW.

"It shall not be lawful to repeal any of the established laws, except at the session of the law-revisors; and then any Athenian that pleases shall be at liberty to repeal a law, proposing another in its stead. And the committee of council shall put the question upon such laws, first upon the established law, whether the people of Athens approve of it or not; and afterwards upon the proposed law. And whichever the law-revisors shall vote in favour of, that one shall be in force. And no one shall be at liberty to propose a law contrary to any of the established laws. And if any one, having repealed any of the established laws, pass another in its stead not expedient for the people of Athens, or contrary to any of the established laws, an indictment shall lie against him, according to the statute provided in case of a person proposing an improper law."

It

You have heard the statute. Among many wise laws which the state possesses, there is none, I think, which has been framed more admirably than this. Only observe, how just, how favourable to the people its provisions are. forbids the introduction of a law contrary to the existing laws, without repealing the one first established. Why? First, that you may be able to give a just verdict with a safe conscience. For if there were two inconsistent laws, and any

1 The policy of the Athenian lawgiver was not to allow two inconsistent laws to remain together in his code; and there was no such thing among the Athenians as the repealing of a statute by implication. In the multiplicity of our modern Acts of Parliament, it has not unfrequently occurred, that an enactment has been passed at variance with some previous one, of which it makes no mention, or which, at all events, it does not expressly repeal. The rule then is, that, if the negative of the first is necessarily implied, the second operates as a repeal of the first. For example, where a statute imposed a fine of 100l. and three months' imprisonment for seducing artificers, and a subsequent statute inflicted a penalty of 500l. and twelve months' imprisonment for the same offence, it was decided that the former was virtually repealed by the latter. The English courts lean against such constructive repeals, and strive, if possible, to reconcile two apparently conflicting statutes. If the repugnancy however cannot be got over, then the rule prevails, leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant.

parties came to trial before you, either on a public or a private question, and each of them claimed the verdict, producing a different law, you could not, of course, decide in favour of both; that is impossible: nor could you decide for either one of them with due regard to your oaths; for such decision violates the repugnant law, which is equally valid with the other. Against such a mischief the legislator provided by this clause. But he had a further motive in it. He wished to make you guardians of the laws; for he knew that the other safeguards which he has provided for them. there are various ways of eluding. The public advocates, whom you appoint, may be persuaded to hold their tongues. He requires the laws to be exposed to view, that all men may have notice. It may possibly happen that persons who would oppose them remain in ignorance, without some previous notice, while persons who pay no attention to the subject read them. But, it may be said, every man may indict a law, as I have done now. Yes; but, if a man gets rid of the prosecutor, the state is still cheated. What then is the only proper and firm safeguard of the laws? You, the people for no man can deprive you of the power of judging and testing what is right; no man can by deceit or corruption persuade you to pass the worse law instead of the better. On these accounts, the legislator blocks up all the paths of injustice, checking the evil-disposed, and not letting them stir a step. All these wise and righteous enactments Timocrates cancelled and expunged, as far as it lay in his power, and introduced a law contrary, I may say, to all the existing laws, not reading one in comparison with it, not repealing the opposite, not giving you a choice between. them, not performing any other of the legal requisites.

That he has become amenable then to the indictment by having brought in a law repugnant to the existing laws, I imagine you are all convinced. To show you what sort of a law he has introduced, and what sort of laws he has violated, the usher shall first read you the defendant's law, and then the others, with which it is inconsistent. Read.

THE LAW.

"In the first presidency, to wit, that of the Pandionian tribe, on the twelfth day thereof, Timocrates moved: If any of the

persons who are indebted to the state has been or shall hereafter be condemned, pursuant to a law or to a decree, to suffer the penalty of imprisonment, it shall be lawful for him, or for another person on his behalf, to put in such bail for the debt as the people shall approve, to be security for payment of the sum which he owed, and the committee of council are hereby required to take the votes of the assembly,1 when any one wishes to put in bail; and the person who has given bail, if he pays to the state the money for which he gave the bail, shall be released from imprisonment; but if neither he nor his bail shall have paid the money in the ninth presidency, the party released on bail shall be imprisoned, and the property of the bail shall be confiscated. Provided that, in the case of farmers of the taxes and their sureties and the collectors, and lessees of the leasable revenues and their sureties, the state shall be at liberty to recover her dues according to the established laws. And if any one is indebted in the ninth presidency, he shall pay his debt in the ninth or tenth presidency of the following year."

You have heard the law. Pray remember these parts of it-first, the words "if any of the persons who are indebted has been or shall hereafter be condemned to suffer imprisonment"-next, the clause which excepts from the law the farmers of taxes and lessees of the revenue and their sureties. The whole statute is contrary to all existing statutes, but especially those parts of it, as you will perceive when you hear him read.

Recite the laws to them. Read.

THE LAW.

"Diocles moved: The laws enacted before Euclides2 in the time of the democracy, and such as were enacted in the Archonship of Euclides and are recorded, shall be in force. Those which were enacted after Euclides or shall hereafter be enacted shall come into operation from the days on which they were respectively passed, except where a time is expressly appointed, in whose archonship any law is to commence.

Pabst, bestätigen, following Reiske and Schäfer. But then, instead οι ὅταν τις καθιστάναι βούληται, one would rather have expected ὅταν ὁ δῆμος χειροτονήσῃ.

See my article Nóμos in the Archæological Dictionary.

And the secretary of the council shall affix his mark to the laws which are now established within thirty days; and for the future the secretary for the time being shall immediately annex a clause, that the law shall come into operation from the day on which it was passed."

Admirable as were the existing laws, men of the jury, the law which has just been read defined (as it were) and confirmed them. For it declares that every one shall come into force from the day when it was passed, except where a date is expressly mentioned, and then it shall commence from the prescribed date. Why so? Because to many statutes a clause had been annexed, "that the act should come into operation in the archonship succeeding the present." The person therefore who afterwards proposed this law which has been read, framing it at a later period, thought it not right that statutes which themselves contained a postponing clause should be carried, back to the day of their enactment, and made to come in force before their respective authors desired. See how contrary to this law is the one which the defendant has passed. The one declares, that the prescribed date, or the day of enactment, shall be the starting point: Timocrates inserts a clause, “if any person has been condemned," referring to past transactions; and even this he does not limit, by naming any archonship as the term of commencement, but has made his law come in force not only before the day of its enactment, but before any of us were born; for he has taken in the whole of the past indefinitely. You ought, Timocrates, either never to have framed your law, or to have repealed the other; not to have thrown everything into confusion, to further your own purposes.

Read another law.

THE LAW.

"Nor concerning the disfranchised shall there be any proposal, for restoration of their franchise, nor concerning those who are indebted to the Gods or to the Athenian treasury, for remission of their debts or for a composition, unless permission has been granted by not less than six thousand Athenians, who shall think fit to vote in that behalf by ballot. And then it shall be lawful to make a proposal to that effect, in such manner as seems good to the council and the assembly."