[28]
Do not
allow him to say that the law affords me a choice of personal suits or an
indictment for assault. That is true; but he has to prove that he has not done
what I have charged him with, or that in doing it he has not profaned the
festival, for that is the ground on which I based my public plaint against him,
and that is the question on which you must presently cast your votes. But if I,
waiving the profit which a private suit would bring, entrust his punishment to
the State, and if I have chosen this particular form of action from which I can
receive no benefit myself, then surely it ought to win me your favour and not
prejudice my case.
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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