17
But now to the irrefutable argument, as Demosthenes calls it, I wish to reply briefly in advance. For he will say, I am in charge of the construction of walls; I admit it; but I have made a present of a hundred minas to the state, and I have carried out the work on a larger scale than was prescribed; what then is it that you want to audit? unless a man’s patriotism is to be audited! Now to this pretext hear my answer, true to the facts and beneficial to you.
17
In this city, so ancient and so great, no man is free from the audit who has held any public trust.
18
I will first cite cases where this would be least expected. For example, the law directs that priests and priestesses be subject to audit, all collectively, and each severally and individually—persons who receive perquisites only, and whose occupation is to pray to heaven for you; and they are made accountable not only separately, but whole priestly, families together, the Eumolpidae, the Ceryces, and all the rest.
19
Again, the law directs that the trierarchs be subject to audit, though they have had no public funds in their hands, and though they are not men who filch large sums from your treasury and pay out small ones, and not men who claim to be making donations when they are only paying back what is your own, but men who are acknowledged by all to have spent their family fortunes in their ambition to serve you.