On The Crown   

to the People as a free-will offering out of my private estate; nor is any
one else so liable, not even if he is one of the nine archons. What law is
so replete with injustice and churlishness, that when a man has made a
present out of his private property and done an act of generosity and
munificence, it deprives him of the gratitude due to him, hales him before
a court of disingenuous critics, and sets them to audit accounts of sums
which he himself has given? There is no such law. If the prosecutor
asserts that there is, let him produce it, and I will resign myself and
say no more. {113} But the law does not exist, men of Athens; this is
nothing but an informer's trick on the part of Aeschines, who, because I
was Controller of the Festival Fund when I made this donation, says,
'Ctesiphon proposed a vote of thanks to him when he was still liable to
account.' The vote of thanks was not for any of the things for which I was
liable to account; it was for my voluntary gift, and your charge is a
misrepresentation. 'Yes,' you say, 'but you were also a Commissioner of
Fortifications.' I was, and thanks were rightly accorded me on the very
ground that, instead of charging the sums which I spent, I made a present
of them. A statement of account, it is true, calls for an audit and
scrutineers; but a free gift deserves gratitude and thanks; and that is
why the defendant proposed this motion in my favour. {114} That this
principle is not merely laid down in the laws, but rooted in your national
character, I shall have no difficulty in proving by many instances.
Nausicles,[n] to begin with, has often been crowned by you, while general,
for sacrifices which he had made from his private funds. Again, when
Diotimus[n] gave the shields, and Charidemus[n] afterwards, they were
crowned. And again, Neoptolemus here, while still director of many public
works, has received honours for his voluntary gifts. It would really be too
bad, if any one who held any office must either be debarred thereby from
making a present to the State, or else, instead of receiving due gratitude,
must submit accounts of the sums given. {115} To prove the truth of my
statements, (_to the clerk_) take and read the actual decrees which were
passed in honour of these persons. Read.

{116} [_Two decrees are read_.]

{117} Each of these persons, Aeschines, was accountable as regards the
office which he held, but not as regards the services for which he was
crowned. Nor am I, therefore; for I presume that I have the same rights as
others with reference to the same matters. I made a voluntary gift. For
this I receive thanks; for I am not liable to account for what I gave. I
was holding office. True, and I have rendered an account of my official
expenditure, but not of what I gave voluntarily. Ah! but I exercised my
office iniquitously! What? and you were there, when the auditors brought
me before them, and did not accuse me?

{118} Now that the court may see that the prosecutor himself bears me
witness that I was crowned for services of which I was not liable to
render an account, (_to the clerk_) take and read the decree which was
proposed in my honour, in its entirety. (_To the jury_.) The points which
he has omitted to indict in the Council's resolution will show that the
charges which he does make are deliberate misrepresentations. (_To the
clerk_.) Read.

[_The decree is read_.]

{119} My donations then, were these, of which you have not made one the
subject of indictment. It is the reward for these, which the Council
states to be my due, that you attack. You admit that it was legal to
accept the gifts offered, and you indict as illegal the return of
gratitude for them. In Heaven's name, what must the perfect scoundrel, the
really heaven-detested, malignant being be like? Must he not be a man like
this?

{120} But as regards the proclamation in the theatre, I pass by the fact