Demosthenes, Letters
Norman W. DeWitt, Norman J. DeWitt, Ed.

Moreover, I am amazed if any one of you is ignorant of this fact also, that it is not to the interest of our political life, either, for this to become public knowledge, that those who have established friendship in a certain other quarter¹ are sure to prosper in all things and fare better and, if some mishap occurs, the ways of escape are easier, but those who have attached themselves to the cause of the people will not only fare worse in other respects but for them alone of all men calamities will remain irremediable. Yet it is easy to demonstrate the truth of this, [24] for who of you does not know the incident of Laches² the son of Melanopus, whose lot it was to be convicted in a court of law precisely as the sons of Lycurgus in the present instance, but his entire fine was remitted when Alexander requested it by letter? And again, that it happened to Mnesibulus³ of Acharnae to be similarly convicted, the court condemning him just as it has the sons of Lycurgus, and to have the fine remitted, and rightly too, for the man was deserving? [25] And none of those who are now making such an outcry declared that by these actions the laws were being nullified. Quite rightly so, for they were not being nullified, if it be true that all our laws are enacted for the sake of just men and for the preservation of honest men, and that it is expedient neither to render the calamities of the unfortunate perpetual nor for men to show themselves void of gratitude. [26] And furthermore, if it is expedient for these principles to hold true, as we would declare, not only were you not nullifying the laws where you released those men, but you were preserving the lifework of those men who enacted the laws, first, by releasing Laches in compliance with the request of Alexander and, secondly, by restoring Mnesibulus to his rights because of the sobriety of his life.