Everyone is equal before the law

h/t Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale. Page 75.

Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability that a man possesses.
- Pericles to the Athenians