[61]
I shall be told that this is a quibble of ours; who will
ever be “violently and illegally seized” by Charidemus?
Everybody. Surely you are aware that any man who has troops at command lays
hands on whomsoever he thinks he can overpower, demanding ransom. Heaven and
Earth! Is it not monstrous, is it not manifestly contrary to law,—I do
not mean merely to the statute law but to the unwritten law of our common
humanity,—that I should not be permitted to defend myself against one
who violently seizes my goods as though I were an enemy? And that will be so, if
the slaying of Charidemus is forbidden even on those terms,—if even
though he be iniquitously plundering another man's property, his slayer is to be
liable to seizure, though the statute ordains that he who takes life under such
conditions shall have impunity.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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