[28] Who then are they who in the lawgiver’ s opinion are not to be permitted to speak? Those who have lived a shameful life; these men he forbids to address the people. Where does he show this? Under the heading
Scrutiny of public men
1
he says,
If any one attempts to speak before the people who beats his father or mother, or fails to support them or to provide a home for them. Such a man, then, he forbids to speak. And right he is, by Zeus, say I! Why? Because if a man is mean toward those whom he ought to honor as the gods, how, pray, he asks, will such a man treat the members of another household, and how will he treat the whole city? Whom did he, in the second place, forbid to speak?
Against Timarchus. Aeschines. Charles Darwin Adams (Translator). London. 1919.
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