And yet in public trials, gentlemen of the jury, the jury should refuse to listen to the details of the prosecution until they have first considered the point at issue, and also the written statement of the accused, to see if the pleas are legally valid. It is certainly wrong to maintain, as Polyeuctus did in his speech for the prosecution, that defendants should not insist on the impeachment law; which lays it down that impeachments shall be reserved for the orators themselves, when they speak against the interests of the people, but shall not apply to every Athenian.
