Hyperides · Orations · 许佩里德斯

each man in private and in public life, and also in the law and in the oath which bids you give an equal hearing to the prosecution and to the defence.

to conduct the prosecution, allow me also in the same way to follow out, so far as I am able, the line of defence which I have chosen. I must ask you all, while I am speaking, to refrain from interrupting me with: Why are you telling us this? And do not add anything of your own to the prosecution’s argument; rather attend to the defence

nor is it true that the law, while allowing freedom to join in the prosecution of men on trial, denies the right to share in their defence. I do not intend to waste words before coming to the point, and shall therefore proceed to the actual defence, after praying the gods to help me and bring me safely through the present trial and requesting you, gentlemen of the jury, first

either the betrayal of dockyards, the burning of public buildings, or the seizure of the Acropolis

Euphemus first when the husband died of Phlya from him that the woman he had left his wife with child, which did not entail any breach of the law. But if their interpretation of this story tallied with that given by Ariston in the impeachment, they should not surely have prevented the nearest relatives from ejecting Euphemus. They ought to have let them do so. Whereas now, by behaving as they did, they have by their own action furnished evidence that the charge against me is false. Besides, is it not strange that if anything had happened to the child at birth, or after, they would have adhered firmly to this will, in which

nor is it possible for him to deny his own handwriting

to be sluggish

and he had Ariston’s slaves in his works. This fact he confirmed for you himself in court when Ariston was bringing an action against Archestratides.

Let me explain the kind of method which this man Ariston employs. He issues a summons against everyone he meets, accusing and prosecuting those who do not give him money, but letting go all who are willing to pay. He gives the money to Theomnestus who takes it and buys slaves, providing Ariston with a livelihood, as is done for pirates, and paying him an obol a day for each slave, to enable him to continue permanently as a false informer.

When considering the matter, gentlemen of the jury, we ought to begin with the charges which my accusers themselves brought against me at the outset in the Assembly. My relatives communicated the impeachment to me by letter, and also the charges which they made against me in the Assembly when they brought the impeachment in. Among these was recorded a statement of Lycurgus, who claimed to have been told by the relatives that during the wedding of Charippus to the woman I followed and tried to persuade her to reserve herself and have nothing to do with Charippus.

Let me now repeat to you the answer which I gave to the relatives and also to my own relations directly I arrived, namely this. If these accusations are true, I agree to having done all the other things set down in the impeachment. But they are false, as is surely obvious to everyone.

For who is there in Athens so uncritical as to believe these allegations? There must have been attenders, gentlemen of the jury, with the carriage that conveyed the bride: first a muleteer and a guide, and then her escort of boys, and also Dioxippus. For he was in attendance, too, since she was a widow being given away in marriage.

Was I then so utterly senseless, do you think, that with all those other people in the procession, as well as Dioxippus and Euphraeus his fellow-wrestler, both acknowledged to be the strongest men in Greece, I had the impudence to pass such comments on a free woman, in the hearing of everyone, and was not afraid of being strangled on the spot? Would anyone have listened to such remarks about his sister as these men accuse me of having made, without killing the speaker?

And to crown it all, as I said just now, are we to conclude that Charippus was so completely obtuse that he was still prepared to marry her, although in the first place she said beforehand, according to their story, that she was pledged to me and in the second place he heard me encouraging her to keep the promises she had made? Do you think that the mad Orestes, or Margites, the greatest fool of all time, would act like that?

But then, in my opinion, gentlemen of the jury, the prosecutors in a trial have many advantages over the defendants. For them the case involves no risk, and so they are free to talk and lie to their heart’s content, while the men on trial are afraid and so forget to mention a great deal, even of what they have really done.

Also, accusers, speaking first, do not confine themselves to putting the just arguments which support their case, but trump up baseless slanders about the accused and so deprive them of the means of defence. The latter are thus affected in one of two ways. Either they defend themselves against the extraneous charges and fall short in the relevant parts of their defence, or else they forget the accusations which have just been made, and so leave the jury with the impression that these are true.

In addition to this the accusers create a prejudice against the advocates for the defence and distort the case of the accused himself; which is what Ariston here attempted to do, when speaking for the prosecution, since he does not even allow me to benefit from those who come forward to help me intending to share in my defence. What reason is there why they should not? Is it not right that men on trial should be supported by their relatives and friends? Or is there any custom in the city more democratic than that which permits citizens capable of public-speaking to assist those who are incapable when they are in trouble?

But you, Ariston, have not merely discussed my advocates; you even determine my own arguments and tell the jury what they must listen to, what line of defence they must prescribe for me, and what they must not tolerate. Surely it is most unfair that after conducting the prosecution as you wanted you should rob me of my defence, because you know already the honest answers I can offer to your lies.

And you accuse me in the impeachment of undermining the democracy by breaking the laws; but you override every law yourself, by presenting an impeachment in a case where the laws require a public charge before the Thesmothetae. Your object was to run no risk in bringing in the action and also to have the opportunity of writing tragic phrases in the impeachment, such as you have written now, protesting that I am making many women grow old unmarried in their homes and many live illegally with men unsuited for them.

The fact is that you can instance no other woman in the city whom I have wronged in this way, and as for the subject of your present charge, what view did you take of her? Was she right to live with Charippus, an Athenian citizen who was her husband; or was she growing old unmarried in her home, she who was married at once, as soon as Euphemus supplied a talent of silver as a dowry, obviously with no ulterior motive but simply out of kindness?

So Ariston may say whatever he pleases, gentlemen of the jury, and invent lies against me, but surely your verdict upon me must be based, not on the slanders of the prosecutor, but on a review of the whole of my life. No one in the city, whether good or bad, can deceive the community in which you live. Indeed the most reliable testimonial of character which a man can have is his past career, especially in refuting charges like the present.

Where the crime is one which can be committed at any time during a man’s life it should be considered in the light of the particular accusation made. But adultery is a practice which no man can begin after fifty. Either he has been a loose-liver for a long lime—and let these men prove that that is true of me—or else the charge may be presumed false.

Now I, gentlemen of the jury, have lived with you in Athens all my life. I have never been subjected to any discreditable charge, nor have I brought an accusation against another citizen. I have not been defendant or prosecutor in any lawsuit, but have always been a keen horsebreeder, consistently overtaxing my strength and my resources. I have been crowned for bravery by the order of knights and by my colleagues in office.

For you appointed me, gentlemen of the jury, first as Phylarch and later as Cavalry Leader at Lemnos. I held the command there for two years, the only cavalry leader who has ever done so, and prolonged my stay for a third, as I did not wish, in exacting the pay for the horsemen rashly, to burden citizens in financial straits.

During that time no one there brought an action against me, either private or public. In fact I was crowned three times by the inhabitants of Hephaestia and as many times more by those of Myrine. These facts should satisfy you, in the present trial, that the charges against me are false. No man can be good in Lemnos if he is bad in Athens, and you had no poor opinion of me when you dispatched me there and made me responsible for two of your own cities.

Well, gentlemen of the jury, you have heard virtually all that I had to say in my own defence. The prosecutor, who is an experienced speaker and used to frequent litigation, summoned advocates to help him in unjustly ruining a citizen. So I too am asking you, most earnestly, for your authority to summon my advocates in this important case, and I beg you to give a sympathetic hearing to any of my relatives or friends who can help me.

I am a fellow-citizen of yours, an amateur unused to speaking, on trial now with the risk not only of losing my life—a minor consideration to men with a proper sense of values—but also of being cast out after death, without even the prospect of a grave in my own country. So if you will give the word, gentlemen of the jury, I will call an advocate. Will you please come up, Theophilus, and say what you can in my defence? The jury ask you to do so.

in a free city furthering the interests of tyrants towards slavery

was responsible for actions which did credit to the city and to Greece. Therefore both here and everywhere else he was paid the highest honors rightly

we must thank Alexander on account of those who died but I think

Moreover these men trample on the people in their misfortune, and for this reason they deserve your hatred far more. For just as human bodies need most care when they are sick, so it is with cities, which need most attention in times of misfortune. To these men ?) only

[Very fragmentary.]

each of them gives, one in Thebes, another in Tanagra

Or that they do not pray for the overthrow of all that is left in Greece, when they are deriving profits from the cities that are being destroyed? Or that, while they wish you to spend your lives in fear and danger

Unimpressive in person on account of his thinness.

make accusations. And they make it clear that even when they were friends of the Lacedaemonians their speeches were prompted not by love for them but by hatred of Athens and a willingness to flatter those whose power at any time threatened you.

And when the power recently shifted from them to Philip they then chose to flatter him and Democrates of Aphidna who never leaves their sides makes jokes on the city’s misfortunes, abusing you in the market place by day and then coming at evening to dine at your table. And yet you, Democrates, are the one person who has no right to say a single hard word against the state, for two reasons:

first because you needed no one but yourself to show you that the city is grateful to her benefactors, you who now enjoy the honors for services which other men once rendered; and secondly because the people drew up a law forbidding anyone to speak ill of Harmodius and Aristogeiton or sing disparaging songs about them. It is therefore scandalous that, though the people saw fit to prevent even a drunken man from abusing your ancestors, you should be speaking ill of the state even when you are sober.

I have a few more points to make, gentlemen of the jury, and after summing up my argument will leave the platform. The case in which you are going to vote is an indictment for the proposing of illegal measures and the decree under consideration is one congratulating presidents. Presidents should observe the law during their period of office. These men have broken it. As evidence for both these facts you heard the actual laws read.

The sequel now rests with you. For you will make it plain whether you are going to punish the proposers of illegal measures or whether you intend to grant those honors, which till now have been paid to your benefactors, to presidents whose conduct is not lawful; and that too when you have sworn to observe the laws in giving your vote. There is, however, one argument open to them, namely that the people were compelled to pass the votes of honor. Even this cannot possibly mislead you; for it cannot be said that we were under any compulsion to crown the presidents.

Moreover the defendant has himself made your decision easy, since he stated in writing his reasons for crowning them. They had, he said, been just towards the Athenian people and observed the laws during their office. That is a statement for which you must now summon him to answer. And you, Philippides, show us that what you assumed about the presidents in your decree is true and you will be acquitted.

But if you think that your usual vulgarity and joking will secure your pardon in court or win from these men any indulgence or sympathy to which you are not entitled, you are a fool and very far from the mark. You see, you laid up popularity for yourself, not in Athens, but elsewhere. You thought fit to cringe before those whom the people feared rather than before the men who now have power to save you.

You have concluded that one person will be immortal, yet you sentenced to death a city as old as ours, never realizing the simple fact that no tyrant has yet risen from the dead, while many cities, though utterly destroyed, have come again to power. You and your party took no account of the history of the Thirty or of the city’s triumph over her assailants from without and those within her walls who joined in the attack upon her. It was well known that you were all watching the city’s fortunes, waiting for the chance to say or do something against the people.

Will you dare then presently to mention opportunities, when the opportunities you sought were for the city’s ruin? Have you brought your children with you into court, Philippides? Are you going to bring them soon on to the platform and so claim pity from the jury? You have no right to pity. When others felt compassion for the city’s misfortunes, you and your like were exulting over her. They had resolved to save Greece in a spirit which ill deserved the fate they met. But you, who are unjustly bringing Athens into the depths of shame, deserve the punishment you are now about.to suffer.

Why should you spare this man, gentlemen? Because he is a democrat? Why, you are well aware that he has chosen to be the slave of tyrants and is ready on the other hand to give the people orders. Would it be because he is a good man? No; for you twice condemned him as a criminal. True, you may say, but he is useful. Granted; but if you use a man whom you are known to have condemned as wicked, it will appear either that your judgements are wrong or that you welcome wicked men. It is not therefore right to take upon yourselves this man’s misdeeds. On the contrary: the transgressor must be punished.

And if anyone comes forward with the plea that he has twice before been convicted for illegal proposals and that therefore you should acquit him, please do just the opposite, and that for two reasons. In the first place it is a piece of good fortune, when a man is known to have proposed illegal measures, that you should catch him coming up for trial a third time. He is not a good man and need not be spared as such. Indeed you should rid yourselves of him as quickly as you can, since he has twice already proved his character to you.

And secondly, compare the case of false witness. If people have been twice convicted of this, you have allowed them to refrain from giving evidence a third time, even of events at which they have themselves been present, so that, if anyone is disfranchised, responsibility shall rest, not on the people, but on the man himself, for continuing to bear false witness. Similarly men convicted of illegal proposals need not bring forward proposals in future. If they do they are clearly actuated by some private motive. So that people of this type deserve punishment, not pity.

I do not wish to speak too long after setting myself as a limit an amphora of water in the clock; so the clerk will read you the indictment again. And now bear in mind the accusations and the laws which you heard read and bring in a verdict that will be just and also expedient for yourselves.

When I told her what had happened and explained that Athenogenes was rude to me and unwilling to come to any reasonable agreement, she said that he was always like that and told me not to worry, as she would support me in everything herself.

Her manner when she said this could not have been more sincere, and she took the most solemn oaths to prove that she was thinking only of my welfare and was telling me the plain truth. So, to be quite honest with you, gentlemen of the jury, I took her at her word. That is how love, I suppose, upsets a man’s natural balance when it takes a woman as its ally. She, at any rate, by this act of wholesale trickery pocketed, as a reward for her kindness, a further three hundred drachmas, ostensibly to buy a girl.

Perhaps there is nothing very surprising, gentlemen of the jury, in my having been taken in like this by Antigone, a woman who was, I am told, the most gifted courtesan of her time and who has continued to practise as a procuress has ruined the house of of the deme Chollidae which was equal to any. And yet if that was how she behaved on her own, what do you think her plans are now when she has taken Athenogenes into partnership, who is a speechwriter, a man of affairs and, most significant of all, an Egyptian?

At all events, to make a long story short, she finally sent for me again later and said that after a long talk with Athenogenes she had with difficulty managed to persuade him to release Midas and both his sons for me for forty minas. She told me to produce the money as quickly as I could before Athenogenes changed his mind on any point.

After I had collected it from every source and been a nuisance to my friends I deposited the forty minas in the bank and came to Antigone. She brought us both together, Athenogenes and myself, and after reconciling us asked us to treat each other as friends in future. I consented to this and Athenogenes, the defendant, replied that I had Antigone to thank for what had passed. And now, he said, I will show you how well I am going to treat you for her sake. You are going to put down the money, he went on, for the liberation of Midas and his sons. Instead I will sell them to you formally as your own, so that no one shall interfere with, or seduce the boy, and also so that the slaves themselves shall abstain from being troublesome, for fear of the consequences.

But this is the chief advantage: under the present arrangement they would think that it was I who had freed them; whereas, if you buy them formally first and then liberate them afterwards at your leisure, they will be doubly grateful to you. However, he said, you will become responsible for what money they owe: a debt for some sweet oil to Pancalus and Procles and any other sums which customers have invested in the perfumery in the ordinary course. It is a trifling amount and much more than counterbalanced by the stocks in the shop, sweet oil, scent-boxes, myrrh (and he mentioned the names of some other things), which will easily cover all the debts.

There, so it seems, gentlemen of the jury, lay the catch, the real point of the elaborate plot. For if I used the money to buy their freedom I was simply losing whatever I gave him without suffering any serious harm. But if I bought them formally and agreed to take over their debts assuming, since I had no previous information, that these were negligible, he meant to set all his creditors and contributors on me, using the agreement as a trap.

And that is just what he did. For when I accepted his proposals he immediately took a document from his lap and began to read the contents, which were the text of an agreement with me. I listened to it being read, but my attention was concentrated on completing the business I had come for. He sealed the agreement directly in the same house, so that no one with any interest in me should hear the contents, and added with my name that of Nicon of Cephisia.

We went to the perfumery and deposited the document with Lysicles of Leuconoe, and I put down the forty minas and so made the purchase. When this was settled I was visited by the creditors, to whom Midas owed money, and the contributors too, who talked things over with me. In three months all the debts had been declared, with the result that, including repayment of contributions, I owed, as I said just now, about five talents.

When I realized what a plight I was in, at long last I called together my friends and relatives and we read the copy of the agreement in which the names of Pancalus and Polycles were expressly written with the statement that certain sums were owing to them for sweet oil. These were small amounts, and they were justified in saying that the oil in the shop was equal in value to the money. But the majority of the debts, including the largest, were not given specifically; they were mentioned as an unimportant item in a sort of footnote which ran:

and any debt which Midas may owe to any other person. Of the contributions one was noted of which three instalments for repayment were still outstanding. This was given in the name of Dicaeocrates. But the others, on the strength of which Midas had acquired everything and which were of recent date, were not entered by him in the agreement but kept secret.

On thinking it over we decided to go to Athenogenes and broach the matter. We found him near the perfume stalls and asked him whether he was not ashamed of being a liar and trapping us with the agreement by not declaring the debts beforehand. He replied that he did not know what debts we meant and that we made no impression on him; he had in safe-keeping a document relating to me which covered the transaction. A crowd gathered and overheard the incident, as our altercation took place in the market. Although they gave him a slating and told us to arrest him summarily as a kidnapper, we thought it best not to do so. Instead we summoned him before you, as the law permits. First of all then, the clerk shall read you the agreement; for you shall have the actual text of the document as evidence of the plot, for which Athenogenes and no other is to blame. Read the agreement.

Well, gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the facts in detail. But Athenogenes will presently tell you that in law whatever agreements one man makes with another are binding. Yes, my friend, just agreements. But if they are unjust, the opposite is true: the law forbids that they be binding. I will quote the laws themselves to make this clearer to you. For you have reduced me to such a state of fear lest I shall be ruined by you and your craftiness that I have been searching the laws night and day and studying them to the neglect of everything else.

The first law, then, stipulates that people shall not tell lies in the market, which seems to me a most admirable provision. Yet you lied in the middle of the market when you made the agreement to defraud me. But if you show that you declared to me beforehand the contributions and the debts, or that you wrote in the agreement the names of those whose existence I later discovered, I have no quarrel with you; I admit that I owe the money.

After this there is a second law, covering agreements between individuals, which states that whenever anyone sells a slave, he must declare in advance any physical disability from which the man suffers. Otherwise the slave in question can be returned to the vendor. And yet if a slave can be returned simply because of some weakness due to mischance which the master keeps secret at the time of the sale, how can you fail to take the responsibility for the crimes which you deliberately planned? But the epileptic slave does not involve the buyer in fresh expense, whereas Midas, whom you sold to me, has even lost my friends’ money.

Consider the legal position, Athenogenes, as regards free persons as well as slaves. No doubt you know as everyone does that the children of married women are legitimate. Yet the mere act of betrothing a woman on the part of a father or brother was not enough for the lawmaker. On the contrary, he wrote expressly in the law : whomsoever any man has lawfully betrothed as wife, her children shall be legitimate; not: if any man has betrothed some other woman on the pretence that she is his daughter. He lays it down that just betrothals shall be valid and unjust ones invalid.

Moreover the law dealing with wills is very similar to this. It allows a man to bequeath his property as he wishes unless he is affected by old age, illness or insanity, and provided he is not influenced by a woman or imprisoned or otherwise coerced. But if even our own personal property cannot be administered according to an unjust will, surely Athenogenes who is disposing of my property through his agreement cannot enforce such terms.

Apparently if a man respects the wishes of his own wife in making his will it will be invalid. Then must I, who was influenced by the mistress of Athenogenes, accept the contract and be ruined too, even though I can claim the very powerful help of the law, having been compelled by these people to conclude the agreement? Do you insist on the agreement when you and your mistress laid a trap for me to get it signed? In circumstances where the laws relating to conspiracy proclaim that you are guilty, are you expecting actually to make a profit? You were not content with the forty minas for the perfumery. No; you robbed me of a further five talents as though I were caught

the affairs of the market, but by simply waiting I discovered all the debts and loans in three months. Whereas this man had two generations of perfume sellers behind him; he used to sit in the market every day, was the owner of three stalls and had accounts submitted to him monthly and still he did not know his debts. Though an expert in other matters he was a complete simpleton in dealing with his slave, and though he knew, apparently, of some of the debts, he pleads ignorance of others—to suit his convenience.

In using an argument like this, gentlemen of the jury, he is accusing, not excusing, himself, since he is admitting that I need not pay the debts. For if he says that he did not know the full amount owing, surely he cannot claim that he informed me of the debts beforehand; and I am not bound to pay those of which the seller did not notify me. You knew that Midas owed this money, Athenogenes, as I think we all realize for several reasons, and chiefly because you summoned Nicon to give security for me

in this way. If ignorance prevented you from informing me in advance of all the debts, and if I thought when I concluded the agreement that your statement covered them all, which of us has to pay them? The subsequent purchaser, or the man who owned the business originally, when the money was borrowed? Personally I think that you are liable. But if it turns out that we disagree on this, let the law be our arbiter, which was made neither by lovers nor men with designs on other people’s property but by that great democrat Solon.

He knew that sales are constantly taking place in the city and passed a law, which everyone admits to be just, stating that any offences or crimes committed by a slave shall be the responsibility of the master who owns him at the time. This is only fair; for if a slave gains any success or brings in earnings, his owner enjoys the benefits. But you ignore the law and talk about agreements being broken. Solon did not consider that a decree, even when constitutionally proposed, should override the law. Yet you maintain that even unjust agreements take precedence over all the laws.

Besides this, gentlemen of the jury, he was saying to my father and my other relatives that telling me to leave Midas for him instead of buying him, but that I refused and wanted to buy them all. I gather that he is even going to mention these points to you with the idea of convincing you of his moderation, if you please. He must think that he is going to address a set of fools who will not realize his effrontery.

You must hear what happened; for you will see that it fits in with the rest of their plot. He sent me the boy, whom I mentioned just now, with the message that he could not stay with me unless I freed his father and brother. When I had already agreed to put down the money for the three of them, Athenogenes approached some of my friends and said:

Why does Epicrates want to give himself extra trouble when he could take the boy and use ?

I am not a seller of perfume and I do not practise any other trade. I simply farm the property which my father gave me, and I was landed in the purchase by these people. Which is more probable, Athenogenes, that I set my heart on your trade in which I was not proficient, or that you and your mistress had designs on my money? Personally, I think that you are indicated. Therefore, gentlemen of the jury, you could fairly excuse me for being cheated by and for having had the misfortune to fall in with a man like this, but to Athenogenes

all to be mine and the profits of the fraud to be his that I took Midas whom he says he was reluctant to let go. But for the boy whom, we are told, he originally offered me for nothing, he has now been paid a far higher price than he is worth; and yet in the end the boy will not be my property but will be freed on the strength of your verdict.

However I do not think myself that in addition to my other troubles I deserve to be disfranchised by Athenogenes. For I should be receiving harsh treatment indeed, gentlemen of the jury, if of the metics to come unguarded.

During the war against Philip he left the city just before the battle and did not serve with you at Chaeronea. Instead, he moved to Troezen, disregarding the law which says that a man who moves in wartime shall be indicted and summarily arrested if he returns. The reason for the move, it seems, was this: he thought that the city of Troezen would survive, whereas he had passed a sentence of death on ours. His daughters whom he had brought up in the prosperity which you provided he married off with the intention of returning later to carry on his business when peace was established.

after disregarding the agreement which we all make with the state, he insists on his private contract with me, as if anyone would believe that a man who made light of his duty to you would have cared about his obligations to me. He is so degraded and so true to type wherever he is, that even after his arrival at Troezen when they had made him a citizen he became the tool of Mnesias the Argive and, after being made a magistrate by him, expelled the citizens from the city. The men themselves will bear witness to this; for they are here in exile.

And you, gentlemen of the jury, took them in when they were banished; you made them citizens and granted them a share of all your privileges. Remembering, after more than a hundred and fifty years, the help they gave you against the barbarian, you felt that when men had been of service to you in times of danger you should protect them in their misfortune. But this abandoned wretch, who forsook you and was enrolled at Troezen, engaged in nothing that was worthy either of the constitution or the spirit of that city. He treated those who had welcomed him so cruelly that in the Assembly fled.

To prove that what I say is true the clerk will read you first the law, which forbids metics to move in war time, then the evidence of the Troezenians and also the Troezenians’ decree passed by them in honor of your city, in return for which you welcomed them and made them citizens. Read.

Law. Evidence. Decree. Now take the evidence of the father-in-law

the way in which Athenogenes has plotted against me and also his behavior towards you. If a man has been vicious in his private life and given up hope of his city’s safety; if he has deserted you and expelled the citizens from the town of his adoption, will you not punish him when he is in your power?

For my part, gentlemen of the jury, I beg you most earnestly to show me mercy. Remember in this trial that you ought to have pity suffer nothing if he is convicted

Personally, gentlemen of the jury, as I was just saying to those seated beside me, I am surprised that you are not tired by now of this kind of impeachment. At one time the men impeached before you were Timomachus, Leosthenes, Callistratus, Philon of Anaea, Theotimus who lost Sestos, and others of the same type. Some were accused of betraying ships, others of giving up Athenian cities, and another, an orator, of speaking against the people’s interests.

Though there were five of them, not one waited to be tried; they left the city of their own accord and went into exile. The same is true of many others who were impeached. In fact it was a rare thing to see anyone subjected to impeachment appearing in court. So serious and so notorious were the crimes which at that time led to an impeachment. But the present practice in the city is utterly absurd.

Diognides and Antidorus the metic are impeached on a charge of hiring out flute-girls at a higher price than that fixed by law, Agasicles of Piraeus because he was registered in Halimus, and Euxenippus because of the dreams which he claims to have had; though surely not one of these charges has anything to do with the impeachment law.

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.

With me this law would have first claim to notice; and a point, I think, which should be dwelt on as much as any, is how to ensure that the laws in a democracy are binding and that impeachments and other actions brought into court are legally valid. It was with this in view that you made separate laws covering individually all offences committed in the city.

Suppose someone commits a religious offence. There is the method of public prosecution before the King-Archon. Or he maltreats his parents. The Archon presides over his case. Someone makes illegal proposals in the city. There is the board of Thesmothetae ready. Perhaps he does something involving summary arrest. You have the authority of the Eleven. Similarly, to deal with every other offence you have established laws, offices, and courts appropriate to each.

In what cases then do you think impeachments should be used? Your answer has already been embodied in detail in the law, so as to leave no room for doubt. If any person, it says, seeks to overthrow the democracy of the Athenians. Naturally, gentlemen of the jury; for a charge like that admits of no excuse from anyone nor of an oath for postponement. It should come directly into court.

Or if he attends a meeting in any place with intent to undermine the democracy, or forms a political society; or if anyone betrays a city, or ships, or any land, or naval force, or being an orator, makes speeches contrary to the interests of the Athenian people, receiving bribes. The opening provisions of the law were made applicable by you to the entire citizen body, since those are offences which anyone might commit; but the latter part is directed against the orators themselves, in whose hands the proposing of measures rests.

You would have been insane if you had framed the law in any other way; if, when the orators enjoy both the honors and the profits of speaking, you had exposed the ordinary citizen to the risks that go with them. Nevertheless, Polyeuctus is bold enough to assert, though he is bringing in an impeachment, that defendants must not make use of the impeachment law.

All other prosecutors who think it necessary, when speaking first, to steal the defendants’ arguments from them encourage the jury to refuse to listen to any defendant who does not keep within the scope of the law, to challenge his statements and tell the clerk to read the law. The opposite is true of you: it is recourse to law of which you think you should deprive Euxenippus in his defence.

You also maintain that no one should even help him or be his advocate, and you exhort the jury to refuse a hearing to those who come up to speak. And yet, of the many good institutions of the city, what is better or more democratic than our custom, when some private person is facing the danger of a trial and cannot conduct his own defence, of allowing any citizen who wishes to come forward to help him and give the jury a fair statement of the case?

You will claim, no doubt, that you have never worked on such a principle. Yet when you were prosecuted by Alexander of Oeon, you asked for ten advocates from the tribe Aegeis, and I was one of them, chosen by yourself. You also summoned men from other tribes into the court to help you. But why should I mention other instances? Take your handling of the present trial. Did you not make as many accusations as you wished? Did you not call Lycurgus to join you in the prosecution, a speaker who is the equal of any in the city and who has the reputation among these gentlemen of being sound and honorable?

If you then, as a defendant, may summon advocates, or as a prosecutor may bring in co-prosecutors—you who are not merely capable of speaking for yourself but well able to give a whole city trouble—is Euxenippus, because he is not a professional speaker and is now advanced in years, even to be denied the help of friends and relatives, on pain of their being abused by you?

Yes; for in the words of your indictment, his conduct has been scandalous and deserves the death penalty. Gentlemen of the jury, will you please review it and scrutinize it point by point? The people ordered Euxenippus, as one of three, to lie down in the temple; and he tells us that he fell asleep and had a dream which he reported to them. If you assumed, Polyeuctus, that this was true and that he reported to the people what he actually saw in his sleep, why is he to blame for notifying the Athenians of the commands which the god had been giving him?

If on the other hand, as you now maintain, you thought that he misrepresented the god and, out of partiality for certain persons, had made a false report to the people, rather than propose a decree disputing the dream you ought to have sent to Delphi, as the previous speaker said, and inquired the truth from the god. But instead of doing that, you proposed a decree, entirely conceived by yourself, against two tribes, a measure not only most unjust but self-contradictory also. This was what caused your conviction for illegal proposals. It was not the fault of Euxenippus.

Let us consider it in this way. The tribes, formed into groups of two, shared out the mountains in Oropus awarded to them by the people. This mountain fell to the lot of Acamantis and Hippothoontis. You proposed that these tribes should restore the mountain to Amphiaraus and the price of produce from it which they had sold; your reason being that the fifty boundary officials had selected it beforehand and set it apart for the god, and that the two tribes had no right to be holding it.

A little later in the same decree you propose that the eight tribes shall provide compensation and pay it to the other two so that they shall not suffer unfairly. But if the mountain really belonged to the two tribes and you tried to take it from them, surely we are entitled to be angry. Alternatively, if they had no right to be occupying it and it belonged to the god, why were you proposing that the other tribes should actually pay them compensation? They should have been well content that when restoring the property of the god they did not also pay a fine in cash.

These proposals, when examined in court, were considered unsatisfactory, and the jury condemned you. So if you had been acquitted in your trial, Euxenippus would not have misrepresented the god: because you happened to be convicted, must ruin fall on him? And when you, who proposed a decree like that, were fined a mere twenty-five drachmas, is the man who lay down in the temple at the people’s request even to be refused a grave in Attica?

Yes, you say; for he committed a serious crime in regard to the cup which he allowed Olympias to dedicate to the statue of Health. You think that if you bring her name irrelevantly into the case to serve your own ends and accuse Euxenippus of deceitful flattery, you will bring down the jury’s hatred and anger upon him. The thing to do, my friend, is not to use the name of Olympias and Alexander in the hope of harming some citizen.

Wait till they send the Athenian people some injunctions which are unjust or inappropriate. Then is the time for you to get up and oppose them in the interests of your city, disputing the cause of justice with their envoys and resorting to the Congress of the Greeks as the champion of your country. But you never stood up or spoke about them there; it is only here that you hate Olympias

so that you can ruin Euxenippus by alleging that he flatters her and the Macedonians. If you show us that he has ever been to Macedon or entertained any of the people in his own home, that he knows a Macedonian intimately or meets any of them; if you prove that he has said one word about such matters, either in a shop or in the market or anywhere else, instead of quietly and modestly minding his own business as much as any other citizen, the jury may do what they like with him.

For if these charges of yours were true, not only you but everyone else in the city would know the facts, as is the case with all the others who speak or act in the interests of Macedon. Their conduct is no secret. The rest of Athens, even the schoolchildren, know the orators who take Macedonian money and the other persons who put up Macedonian visitors, either secretly making them welcome or going into the streets to meet them when they arrive. You will not see Euxenippus classed with a single one of these men anywhere.

But you do not prosecute or bring to trial any of the people who are universally known to be doing these things, and yet you accuse Euxenippus of flattery when his manner of life disproves the charge. And yet if you had any sense, you would neither be blaming Euxenippus for the dedication of the cup nor have made any further mention of the affair, since it is impolitic to do so. Why is that? Will you please listen, gentlemen of the jury, to the account which I am going to give?

Olympias has made complaints against you about the incident at Dodona, complaints which are unfair, as I have twice already proved in the Assembly before yourselves and the rest of Athens. I explained to her envoys that the charges she brings against the city are not justified. For Zeus of Dodona commanded you through the oracle to embellish the statue of Dione.

You made a face as beautiful as you could, together with all the other appropriate parts; and having prepared a great deal of expensive finery for the goddess and dispatched envoys with a sacrifice at great expense, you embellished the statue of Dione in a manner worthy of yourselves and of the goddess. These measures brought you the complaints of Olympias, who said in her letters that the country of Molossia, in which the temple stands, belonged to her, and that therefore we had no right to interfere with anything there at all.

Now if you decide that the incidents relating to the cup constitute an offence, we are in a sense condemning ourselves as being wrong in what we did at Dodona. But if we acquiesce in what has been done we shall have taken away her right to these theatrical complaints and accusations. For I presume that when Olympias can furnish ornaments for shrines in Athens we may safely do so at Dodona, particularly when the god demands it.

However, it seems to me, Polyeuctus, that there is nothing which you would not use as grounds for an accusation. But from the time when you decided to play a part in public life, for which I admit you are well fitted, you should not have prosecuted private individuals or made them the victims of your impudence. Wait for an orator to commit a crime and then prosecute him, or for a general to do wrong and then impeach him. These are the men who have power to harm the city, all of them who choose to do so, not Euxenippus or any member of this jury.

It is not as if I were prescribing one line of conduct for you having followed another in my own public life. I myself never in my life prosecuted any private citizen, and there are some whom before now I have done my best to help. What men, then, have I prosecuted and brought to trial? Aristophon of Hazenia, now a most influential person in public life—he was acquitted in this court by two votes only;

Diopithes of Sphettus, thought to be the most formidable man in the city; Philocrates of Hagnus, whose political career has been marked by the utmost daring and wantonness. I prosecuted that man for his services to Philip against Athens and secured his conviction in court. The impeachment which I drew up was just and in accordance with the law, referring to him as an orator giving counsel against the best interests of the people and receiving money and gifts from those working against them.

Even so I was not satisfied to bring in the impeachment before I had added underneath: These proposals he made against the best interests of the people, because he had taken bribes. And I wrote his decree underneath. And again I added: These further proposals he made against the best interests of the people, because he had taken bribes. And I wrote the decree alongside. Indeed this statement is written down five or six times in my speech; for I thought that I must make the trial and the prosecution just. But you could not include in your impeachment the things which you allege Euxenippus to have said against the best interests of the people. Yet, though he is a private citizen, by your mode of prosecution you class him as an orator.

After a scanty reference to the defendant’s written statement you are now bringing fresh charges and incriminations against him, mentioning, amongst other similar allegations, that he tried to marry his daughter to Philocles, that he undertook an arbitration for Demotion, and other similar charges. Your intention is that, if the defence neglect the main indictment and deal with the irrelevant allegations, the jury shall interrupt them by calling: Why do you tell us this? and if they ignore the additional points entirely their case shall be weakened. For any charge that is not refuted is left to be fastened on by the anger of the jury.

The most outrageous feature of your speech was the fact that often during the argument you let fall the remark—you thought that your motive in doing so passed unnoticed, though it was obvious—that Euxenippus was rich, and again, a little later, that he had amassed great wealth dishonestly. It has surely nothing to do with this case whether he is a man of large means or small, and to raise the matter is malicious and implies an unfair assumption regarding the jury, namely that they would base their verdict on other considerations than the point at issue and the question whether the man on trial is offending against you or not.

You do not realize, Polyeuctus, it seems to me, you and those who share your views, that there is not in the world a single democracy or monarch or race more magnanimous than the Athenian people, and that it does not forsake those citizens who are maligned by others, whether singly or in numbers, but supports them.

Let me give an instance. When Tisis of Agryle brought in an inventory of the estate of Euthycrates, amounting to more than sixty talents, on the grounds of its being public property, and again later promised to bring in an inventory of the estate of Philip and Nausicles saying that they had made their money from unregistered mines, this jury were so far from approving such a suggestion or coveting the property of others that they immediately disfranchised the man who tried to slander the accused and did not award him a fifth part of the votes.

Or take a recent instance, if you like, the verdict given by the jury last month, surely a most commendable decision. I refer to the case of Lysander, who reported that the mine of Epicrates of Pallene had been bored beyond the boundaries. It had already been worked for three years and virtually the richest men in Athens had shares in it. Lysander promised to secure three hundred talents for the city, since that, he claimed, was the sum which they had made from the mine.

In spite of this the jury were governed, not by the accusers promises, but by the claims of justice. They decided that the mine was within its proper limits, and in one and the same verdict assured the safety of the men’s estates and guaranteed their working of the mine for the remainder of the period. That is why the excavation of new mines, neglected previously because men were afraid, is now in progress, and the city’s revenues from these are again being increased, revenues which some of our orators impaired by misleading the people and subjecting the mine-workers to tribute.

The good citizen, gentlemen of the jury, is not a man to make some small additions to the public funds in ways which cause an ultimate loss, nor one who, by dishonestly producing an immediate profit, cuts off the city’s lawful source of revenue. On the contrary, he is the man who is anxious to keep what will be profitable to the city in the future, to preserve agreement among the citizens and safeguard your reputation. There are some who disregard these things. By taking money from contractors they claim that they are providing revenue, although it is the lack of it that they are really causing in the city. For when anxiety is attached to earning and saving, who will want to take the risk?

Now perhaps it is not easy to prevent these men from acting as they do; but you, gentlemen of the jury, have saved many other citizens who were unjustly brought to trial. Then help Euxenippus in the same way, rather than desert him over a trivial matter, and in an impeachment like the present: an impeachment to which he is not liable, which has been framed in defiance of the laws, and which moreover has been partly invalidated by the prosecutor himself.

For Polyeuctus has impeached Euxenippus for speaking against the best interests of the people of Athens, being in receipt of money and gifts from those acting against the people of Athens. Now if he were arguing that there were men outside the city with whom Euxenippus was co-operating on receipt of bribes, he would then be able to say that, since these persons could not be punished, their servants in the city must be brought to justice. But, in fact, he says that it is from Athenians that Euxenippus has had the gifts. For shame, sir; when you have here in the city the men who act against the people, do you let them be and choose instead to harass Euxenippus?

I will say a few words more about the vote which you are going to give and then leave the platform. When about to go to the ballot, gentlemen of the jury, tell the clerk to read you the impeachment, the impeachment law and the oath sworn by jurymen. Dispense with the arguments of us all let the impeachment and the laws govern your decision and give whatever verdict you consider to be just and in keeping with your oath.

And now, Euxenippus, I have done all in my power to help you. It remains for you to ask the jury’s permission to summon your friends and bring your children to the bar.

Personally, gentlemen of the jury, as I was just saying to those seated beside me, what surprises me is this. Is it really true that Demosthenes, unlike any other man in Athens, is exempt from the laws which enforce an agreement made by a person against his own interests? Is he unaffected by the people’s decrees, which you have sworn to observe in voting, decrees which were proposed, not by any of his enemies, but by Demosthenes himself, and which the people carried on his motion, almost as though he deliberately sought to destroy himself and yet the just verdict, gentlemen of the jury, is, as I see it, simple: it is in our favor against Demosthenes. In private suits differences are often settled by challenge, and that is how this affair also has been settled. Look at it in this way, gentlemen. The people accused you, Demosthenes, of having accepted twenty talents illegally, against the interests of the state. You denied having done so and drew up a challenge, which you laid before the people in the form of a decree entrusting the matter on which you were accused to the council of the Areopagus.

and you malign the Areopagus and publish challenges, in which you ask how you came by the gold, who gave it you, and where. Perhaps you will end by asking what you used it for after you obtained it, as though you were demanding a banker’s statement from the Areopagus. I, on the other hand, should like to know from you why the council of the Areopagus said

the reports. On the contrary they have shown, as you will recognize, an exceptionally democratic spirit in handling the affair. They reported the guilty persons; even this was not done from choice but in answer to repeated pressure from the people; and they did not undertake to punish them on their own responsibility but rightly left it to you, with whom the final authority rests. It is not only his own trial which Demosthenes has in mind when he determines to mislead you by abusing the report; he wishes also to frustrate all the other prosecutions which the city has in hand. That is a point to be carefully borne in mind and you must not be deceived by the defendant’s argument. For these reports concerning the money of Harpalus have all been drawn up by the Areopagus on an equal footing. They are the same for all the accused. In no case has the council added the reason why it publishes a particular name. It stated summarily how much money each man had received, adding that he was liable for that amount. Is Demosthenes to have more weight with you than the report given against him? For of course this argument, if it protects Demosthenes, will also protect the rest. The sum on which you are pronouncing judgement is not twenty, but four hundred, talents. You are judging all the crimes, not one. For your mad conduct, Demosthenes, has made you champion of all these criminals, foremost in danger as you are in impudence. In my opinion the fact that you took the gold is proved to the jury well enough by your being condemned by the council to which you entrusted yourself When Harpalus arrived in Attica, gentlemen of the jury, and the envoys from Philoxenus demanding him were, at the same time, brought into the Assembly, Demosthenes came forward and made a long speech in which he argued that it was not right for Athens to surrender Harpalus to the envoys from Philoxenus, and that Alexander must not be left with any cause for complaint, on his account, against the people; the safest course for the city was to guard the money and the person of Harpalus, and to take up all the money, with which Harpalus had entered Attica, to the Acropolis on the following day, while Harpalus himself should announce then and there how much money there was. His real purpose, it seems, was not simply to learn the figure, but to find out from how large a sum he was to collect his commission. Sitting below in his usual place in the niche, he told Mnesitheus the dancer to ask Harpalus how much money there would be to take up to the Acropolis. The answer given was seven hundred talents He had told you himself in the Assembly that that was the correct figure; and yet when the total brought up to the Acropolis was three hundred and fifty talents instead of seven hundred, having by then received his twenty, he did not utter a wordAfter saying before the Assembly that there were seven hundred talents you now bring up half Harpalus would not have bought nor would the city be exposed to accusation and reproach. But of all these things, Demosthenes It was you who decreed that a guard should be posted over the person of Harpalus. Yet when it relaxed its vigilance you did not try to restore it, and after it was disbanded you did not prosecute those responsible. I suppose you went unpaid for your shrewd handling of the crisis? If Harpalus distributed his gold among the lesser orators, who had nothing to give but noise and shouting, what of you who control our whole policy? Did he pass you over? That is incredible. So supreme is the contempt, gentlemen of the jury, with which Demosthenes has treated the affair, or to be quite frank, you and the laws, that at the outset, it seems, he admitted having taken the money but said that he had used it on your behalf and had borrowed it free of interest for the Theoric fund. Cnosion and his other friends went about saying that Demosthenes would be compelled by his accusers to publish facts which he wished kept secret and to admit that he had borrowed the money free of interest for the state to meet expenses of government. Since the anger of those of you who heard this statement was greatly increased by these aspersions cast on your democracy, on the grounds that he was not content to have taken bribes himself but thought fit to infect the people too speaking and complaining that the Areopagus was seeking favor with Alexander and for that reason wanted to destroy him. As if you did not all know that no one destroys the kind of man who can be bought. On the contrary, it is the opponent who can be neither persuaded nor corrupted with bribes that men contrive to be rid of by any means in their power. There is some likelihood, it seems, that you, Demosthenes, are deaf to prayers and not to be persuaded into taking bribes? Do not imagine, gentlemen, that only trivial matters are affected by the venal conduct of these men. For it is no secret that all who conspire for power in Greece secure the smaller cities by force of arms and the larger ones by buying the influential citizens in them; and we know that Philip reached the height he did because, at the outset, he sent money to the Peloponnese, Thessaly, and the rest of Greece, and those with power in the cities and authority

you tell us marvellous stories, little thinking that your conduct is no secret; you professed to be supporting the people’s interests but were clearly speaking on behalf of Alexander. Personally I believe that even in the past everyone knew that you acted in this way over the Thebans, and over all the rest, and that you appropriated money, which was sent from Asia to buy help, for your own personal use, spending most of it; and now you engage in sea commerce and make bottomry loans, and having bought a house you do not live in the Piraeus but have your anchorage outside the city. A popular leader worthy of the name should be the savior of his country, not a deserter. When Harpalus recently descended on Greece so suddenly that he took everyone by surprise, he found affairs in the Peloponnese and in the rest of Greece in this condition owing to the arrival of Nicanor with the orders which he brought from Alexander relating to the exiles and to the of the Achaean, Arcadian, and Boeotian Leagues You have contrived this situation by means of your decree, because you arrested Harpalus. You have induced the whole of Greece to send envoys to Alexander, since they have no other recourse, and have prevented all the satraps, who by themselves would willingly have joined forces with us, each with money and all the troops at his disposal, not merely from revolting from him, by your detention of Harpalus, but also each of them

sent by Demosthenes, and with Olympias Callias the Chalcidian, the brother of Taurosthenes. For these men were made Athenian citizens on the motion of Demosthenes and they are his special agents. Naturally enough; for being perpetually unstable himself, I suppose he might well have friends from the Euripus. Will you dare then presently to speak to me of friendship you yourself broke up that friendship when you accepted bribes against your country and made a change of front. You made yourself a laughing stock and brought disgrace on those who had ever shared your policy in former years. When we might have gained the highest distinction in public life and been accompanied for the remainder of our lives by the best of reputations, you frustrated all these hopes, and you are not ashamed, even at your age, to be tried by youths for bribery. And yet the positions ought to be reversed: your generation ought to be training the younger orators, reproving and punishing any over-impetuous action. But the fact is just the opposite: the youths are taking to task the men of over sixty. Therefore, gentlemen of the jury, you have a right to feel resentful towards Demosthenes; for after gaining a tolerable reputation and great riches, all through you, even on the threshold of old age he has no loyalty to his country. But you used to be ashamed the Greeks who were standing round, when you passed sentence on certain persons, to think that such popular leaders and generals and guardians of your affairs

For to take money is not so serious as to take it from the wrong source, and the private individuals who took the gold are not so culpable as the orators and generals. Why is that? Because the private individuals were given the money by Harpalus for safe-keeping, but the generals and orators have accepted it with some policy in view. The laws prescribe that ordinary offenders shall pay a simple fine but that men accepting bribes shall pay ten times the usual sum. Therefore, just as we can lawfully fix the penalty for these men, so also from you against them . It is as I said in the Assembly. You give full permission, gentlemen of the jury, to the orators and generals to reap substantial rewards. It is not the laws which grant them this privilege but your tolerance and generosity. But on one point you insist: your interests must be furthered, not opposed, with the money they receive. Now Demosthenes and Demades, from actual decrees passed in the city and from proxenies, have each received, I believe, more than sixty talents, quite apart from the Persian funds and money sent from Alexander. If neither of these sources suffices for them, and they have now accepted bribes which threaten the city’s life itself, can we doubt our right to punish them? Suppose that one of you, mere private individuals, during the tenure of some office, makes a mistake through ignorance or inexperience; he will be overwhelmed in court by the eloquence of these men and will either lose his life or be banished from his country. Shall they themselves, after harming the city on such a scale, escape unscathed? Conon of Paeania took theoric money for his son who was abroad. He was prosecuted for it by these men in court, and though he asked your pardon, had to pay a talent, all for taking five drachmas. Aristomachus also, because, on becoming principal of the Academy, he transferred a spade from the wrestling school to his own garden near by and used it and

However during the period which followed the people did not forbid us to approach them or to discuss with them; instead they used us as counsellors and advisers and elected him next as treasurer with full control of their finances, considering, quite rightly, that we owed him a debt of gratitude. Later, too, though we were often brought to trial on the strength of that policy and the war itself, these men did not vote against us once but brought us safely through everything; and one could not have a more impressive, or a surer sign of popular favor the people so behaved that though deprived themselves by fortune of their crown of glory, they did not take from us the wreath which they had granted. When the people have acted thus towards us should we not render them all due service, and if need be die for them? I believe we should, but you, against the people benefits. For them to serve their own, and not some other’s country you have continued to display the power of your eloquence. When you thought that the Areopagus would report those who had the gold you became hostile and created a disturbance in the city so as to obstruct the inquiry. But when the Areopagus postponed its statement on the grounds that it had not yet discovered the truth, you conceded in the Assembly that Alexander might be the son of Zeus and Poseidon too if he wished wished . . . to set up a statue of Alexander, the king and god invincible Olympias announced to the people

of the charges and made a proclamation about them. And they, instead of returning what they had received and being quit of the affair, were proposing penalties and inquiries directed against themselves. How ought we to treat men who began by doing wrong and taking bribes and then, when exemption was offered them, did not give back the gold? Should we let them go unpunished? No; for it would be a shameful thing, gentlemen of the jury, to jeopardize the safety of the city because of charges brought against individual men. You cannot acquit these men themselves unless you are willing also to assume responsibility for their crimes Then do not indulge their love of gain, gentlemen of the jury, at the expense of your own security. Do not let your motive for making war be love of sordid gain; let it be rather a wish for a more creditable record and a change to better fortunes

on behalf of them we made peace to be rendered to it by each of us. The prosecuting in court and the exposing of those who had received the money and taken bribes against their country it allotted to us, the chosen accusers. The reporting of the names of the recipients it assigned to the Areopagus, who gave these men’s names to the people. Punishment of the criminals to you the Areopagus. If the vote goes contrary to law or justice, that is a responsibility, gentlemen of the jury, which will rest with you. You must all therefore the safety of the city and the good fortune which in other ways you all enjoy in this country both collectively and individually. Remember the tombs of your ancestors and punish the offenders in the interests of the whole city. Do not allow their plausibility in argument the men who have taken bribes against their country and defied the laws. And do not let the tears of Hagnonides affect you. Remember this but this man would have no right to shed tears, any more than pirates who cry upon the wheel when they need not have embarked in the boat. The same is true of Demosthenes. What excuse will he have for tears when he need not have accepted

[a]But you call upon the younger men, though you used to abuse and insult them with the name of wine-swillers. [b]Anyone who drank rather freely used to vex you. [c]Not even within a limited time. [—]Cowardly.

The words to be pronounced above this grave, a tribute to Leosthenes the general and the others who have perished with him in the war, for the courage they have shown, have as their witness time itself . . . nor better men than these now dead nor more resplendent actions. Indeed my greatest doubt today is lest my speech may prove unworthy of their exploits.

I am, however, taking heart in this assurance: that what I leave unsaid will be supplied by you who hear me; for my listeners will be no random audience but the persons who themselves have witnessed the actions of these men.

While praise is due to Athens for her policy, for choosing as she did a course not only ranking with her past achievements but even surpassing them in pride and honor, and to the fallen also for their gallantry in battle, for proving worthy of their forbears’ valor, to Leosthenes the general it is doubly due; the city’s guide in framing her decision, he was besides the citizens’ commander in the field.

In the case of Athens, to recount in detail the benefits which she has previously conferred upon the whole of Greece would be a task too great to compass in the time we have, nor is the occasion one for lengthy speaking. Indeed it is not easy for a single man, faced with so many noble actions, to recall the full story to your minds. I shall, however, venture one general comment on her.

Compare her with the sun which visits the whole world and duly separates the seasons, disposing all things for the best, with provision, where men are virtuous and prudent, for their birth and nurture, the crops and all the other needs of life; for so our city never fails to punish the wicked, help the just, mete out to all men fairness in place of wrong, and at her individual peril and expense assure the Greeks a common safety.

To deal with the achievements of the city as a whole is, as I said before, a task which I shall not attempt, and I will here confine myself to Leosthenes and his companions. At what point, then, shall I take up the story? What shall I mention first? Shall I trace the ancestry of each?

To do so would, I think, be foolish. Granted, if one is praising men of a different stamp, such as have gathered from diverse places into the city which they inhabit, each contributing his lineage to the common stock, then one must trace their separate ancestry. But from one who speaks of Athenians, born of their own country and sharing a lineage of unrivalled purity, a eulogy of the descent of each must surely be superfluous.

Am I then to touch upon their education, and, as other speakers often do, remind you how as children they were reared and trained in strict self-discipline? None of us, I think, is unaware that our aim in training children is to convert them into valiant men; and that men who have proved of exceptional courage in war were well brought up in childhood needs no stressing.

The simplest course, I think, will be to tell you of their courage under arms, revealing them as authors of many benefits conferred upon their country and the rest of Greece. First I shall take the general, as is his due.

For Leosthenes perceived that the whole of Greece was humiliated and cowed, corrupted by men who were accepting bribes from Philip and Alexander against their native countries. He realized that our city stood in need of a commander, and Greece herself of a city, able to assume the leadership, and he gave himself to his country and the city to the Greeks, in the cause of freedom.

After raising a mercenary force he took command of the citizen army and defeated the first opponents of Greek freedom, the Boeotians, Macedonians and Euboeans, together with their other allies, in battle in Boeotia.

Thence he advanced to Pylae and occupied the pass through which, in bygone days as well, barbarians marched against the Greeks. He thus prevented the inroad of Antipater into Greece, and overtaking him in that vicinity, defeated him in battle and shut him into Lamia, which he then besieged.

The Thessalians, Phocians, Aetolians, and all the other peoples of the region, he made his allies, bringing under his control, by their own consent, the men whom Philip and Alexander gloried in controlling against their wish. The circumstances subject to his will he mastered, but fate he could not overpower.

Leosthenes must have first claim upon our gratitude for ever, not only for the acts performed by him, but also for the later battle, fought after his death, and for those other triumphs which the Greeks have gained in this campaign. For on the foundations laid by Leosthenes the subsequent success of his survivors rests.

Let no one fancy that I disregard the other citizens and keep my eulogy for him alone. The praise bestowed upon Leosthenes for these engagements is in fact a tribute to the rest. For though sound strategy depends upon the leader, success in battle is ensured by those who are prepared to risk their lives; and therefore, in the praise that I bestow upon the victory gained, I shall be commending not merely the leadership of Leosthenes but the courage of his comrades too.

For who could rightly grudge his praise to those of our citizens who fell in this campaign, who gave their lives for the freedom of the Greeks, convinced that the surest proof of their desire to guarantee the liberty of Greece was to die in battle for her?

One circumstance did much to reinforce their purpose as champions of Greece: the fact that the earlier battle was fought in Boeotia. They saw that the city of Thebes had been tragically annihilated from the face of the earth, that its citadel was garrisoned by the Macedonians, and that the persons of its inhabitants were in slavery, while others parcelled out the land among themselves. And so these threats, revealed before their eyes, gave them an undaunted courage to meet danger gladly.

Yet the action fought near Pylae and Lamia has proved to be as glorious for them as the conflict in Boeotia, not solely through the circumstances of victory in the field, over Antipater and his allies, but on the grounds of situation also. The fact that this has been the battle’s site will mean that all the Greeks, repairing twice a year to the council of the Amphictyones, will witness their achievements; for by the very act of gathering in that spot they will recall the valor of these men.

Never before did men strive for a nobler cause, either against stronger adversaries or with fewer friends, convinced that valor gave strength and courage superiority as no mere numbers could. Liberty they gave us as an offering for all to share, but the honor of their deeds they have bestowed upon their country as a wreath for her alone.

Now we might well reflect what, in our opinion, the outcome would have been, had these men failed to do their duty in the struggle. Must we not suppose that the whole world would be under one master, and Greece compelled to tolerate his whim as law? In short that Macedonian arrogance, and not the power of justice, would lord it among every people

The practices which even now we have to countenance are proof enough: sacrifices being made to men; images, altars, and temples carefully perfected in their honor, while those of the gods are neglected, and we ourselves are forced to honor as heroes the servants of these people.

If reverence for the gods has been removed by Macedonian insolence, what fate must we conclude would have befallen the rules of conduct towards man? Would they not have been utterly discounted? The more terrible therefore we think the consequences would have been, the greater must be the praise which we believe the dead have earned.

For no campaign has better shown the courage of the soldiers than this last, when they had daily to be arrayed for combat, to fight, on but one expedition, more battles than the combats which any soldier of the past endured, and face extreme severities of weather and many hard privations in the daily needs of life with an endurance almost beyond description.

Such trials Leosthenes induced the citizens to brave undaunted, and they gave up their persons gladly to share the struggle with so great a leader. Should they not then be counted fortunate in their display of valor rather than unfortunate in their sacrifice of life? For in exchange for a mortal body they gained undying glory, safeguarding by their personal courage the universal liberty of Greece

If men are to be happy, the voice of law, and not a ruler’s threats, must reign supreme; if they are free, no groundless charge, but only proof of guilt, must cause them apprehension; nor must the safety of our citizens depend on those who slander them and truckle to their masters but on the force of law alone.

Such were the aims with which these men accepted labor upon labor, and with the dangers of the passing hour dispelled the terrors which the whole future held for citizens and Greeks, sacrificing their lives that others might live well.

To them we owe it that fathers have grown famous, and mothers looked up to in the city, that sisters, through the benefit of law, have made, and will make, marriages worthy of them, that children too will find a passport to the people’s hearts in these men’s valor; these men who, far from dying—death is no word to use where lives are lost, as theirs were, for a noble cause—have passed from this existence to an eternal state.

For if the fact of death, to others a most grievous ill, has brought to them great benefits, are we not wrong indeed to count them wretched or to conclude that they have left the realm of life? Should we not rather say they have been born anew, a nobler birth than the first? Mere children then, they had no understanding, but now they have been born as valiant men.

Formerly they stood in need of time and many dangers to reveal their courage; now, with that courage as a base, they have become known to all, to be remembered for their valor.

On what occasion shall we fail to recollect the prowess of these men, in what place fail to see them win their due of emulation and the highest praise? What if the city prospers? Surely the successes, which they have earned, will bring their praises, and none other’s, to our lips and to our memories. Shall we then forget them in times of personal satisfaction? We cannot; for it is through their valor that we shall have the safe enjoyment of those moments.

Will there be men of any age who will not count them blessed? What of the older generation, who think that through the efforts of these men they have been placed in safety and will pass the rest of their lives free from dread? Consider their compeers . . .

Think, too, of the younger men and boys. Will they not envy their death and strive themselves to take as an example these men’s lives, in place of which they have left behind their valor?

Ought we then to count them happy in so great an honor?

For if it is for pleasure that men recall such feats of courage, what could be more pleasing to Greeks than the praise of those who gave them freedom from the Macedonian yoke? Or if it is desire for profit that prompts such recollections, what speech could be of greater profit to the hearts of those about to hear it than one which is to honor courage and brave men?

With us and all mankind, it is clear, in the light of these reflections, that their fame is now assured, but what of the lower world? Who, we may well ask ourselves, are waiting there to welcome the leader of these men? Are we not convinced that we should see, greeting Leosthenes with wonder, those of the so-called demi-gods who sailed against Troy: heroes whom he so far excelled, though his exploits were akin to theirs, that they with all Greece at their side took but one city, while he with his native town alone brought low the whole power which held Europe and Asia beneath its sway?

They championed one lone woman wronged, but he staved off from all Greek women the violence coming upon them, aided by these men who now are being buried with him.

Remember the figures who, born after the heroes of old, yet rivalled their deeds of valor, the followers of Miltiades and Themistocles, and those others who, by freeing Greece, brought honor to their country and glory to their lives;

whom Leosthenes so far outdid in bravery and counsel, that where they beat back the barbarian power as it advanced, he even forestalled its onslaught. They saw a struggle with the foe in their own land, but he defeated his opponents on the foe’s own soil.

Those too, I fancy, who gave the people the surest token of their mutual friendship, Harmodius and Aristogiton, do not regard as Leosthenes and his comrades in arms; nor are there any with whom they would rather hold converse in the lower world than these. We need not wonder; for what these men did was no less a task than theirs; it was indeed, if judgement must be passed, a greater service still. Those two brought low the tyrants of their country, these the masters of the whole of Greece.

Noble indeed beyond our dreams was the courage these men attained, honorable and magnificent the choice they made. How supreme was the valor, the heroism in times of peril, which they, dedicating to the universal liberty of Greece

It is hard no doubt to offer consolation to those borne down with griefs like these. For sorrows are not stilled by word or law; only the individual’s temper, and the measure of his feeling for the dead, can set the limit to his mourning. Yet we must take heart, and restricting our grief as best we may, bear in our minds, with the thought of death, the glorious name which the fallen have left behind them.

For though their fate deserves our tears, their conduct claims the highest praise. Though they have failed to reach old age in life, they have achieved a fame which knows no age, and have attained the height of satisfaction. For all who were childless at their death the praises of the Greeks will be immortal children. For all who have children alive the goodwill of their country will be the children’s guardian.

And furthermore, if death means non-existence, they have been released from sickness and from grief, and from the other ills which vex our human life. But if in Hades we are conscious still and cared for by some god, as we are led to think, then surely those who defended the worship of the gods, when it was being overthrown, must receive from him the greatest care of all