The Laws of Athens
idea · 4 works · 4 mentions · 7 anchored passages
the laws · its laws · law · laws · the laws and the commonwealth · us, the laws
spoken of as
1 expressionLaws of Athens1 mention
Against Aristogeiton I (Greek)
What will you have to say for yourselves, Athenians, if you emerge after betraying the laws?
in the texts
Against Aristogeiton I
The legal and moral norms that the speaker says Aristogeiton violates and the jurors must uphold.
What will you have to say for yourselves, Athenians, if you emerge after betraying the laws?
For surely you will never go individually to consult the laws as if they were still valid, unless you have now collectively confirmed them before you depart.
The help, I suppose, that comes to all defendants alike from the natural temper of the jury, the help that no man on his trial provides for himself, but that each of you brings with him from home to the court—I mean pity, pardon, benevolence.
Exordia
The body of Athenian law described as the foundation of the city's very existence, whose preservation the speaker ranks above the punishment of individual political rivals.
but, while holding them in check so far as lies in your power, you must yourselves, as becomes men deliberating on behalf of the State, put aside your own private feuds and aim at what is most to the common good, reflecting that the punishment of no individual, nor even of all the politicians in a body, can square the account if once the laws should be destroyed on which your very life depends.
Against Leocrates
The legal order of Athens, invoked as the authority the prosecution serves and the standard the jury must protect.
My task has been to assist my country, its temples and its laws.
Bear in mind the charges brought and make of Leocrates a proof that with you tears and compassion have not more weight than the salvation of the laws and people.