Against Meidias
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The brutality and insolence with which Meidias treats everyone alike are, I suppose, as well known to you, gentlemen of the jury, as to all other citizens. For myself, I have simply taken the course which anyone of you would have adopted, had he been the victim of a similar outrage. I lodged a plaint in the Assembly against him as an offender in connection with the festival, not only for his assault on my person at the Dionysia, but for many other acts of violence during the whole period when I served as chorus-master.
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But when the whole people, acting honorably and rightly, evinced such anger, such exasperation, such deep concern at the wrongs which they knew I had suffered, that, in spite of the frantic efforts of the defendant and a few supporters, they were deaf to their arguments, shut their eyes to their wealth and their promises, and condemned him by an unanimous show of hands, thereupon, gentlemen of the jury, many citizens, including some of you who are here in court, came to me and demanded and even implored that I should take the further step of bringing Meidias under your jurisdiction; and they did so, I think, for two reasons, men of Athens, because, so help me heaven! they thought that my own wrongs were serious, and they also wished to punish Meidias for conduct which they had witnessed on other occasions, as a scoundrel and a ruffian who could no longer be tolerated.
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This being so, I have in your interests taken all due precautions, and now that the case is before the court, I am here, as you see, to accuse him, having refused large sums of money, men of Athens, which I might have accepted on condition of dropping the prosecution, and having had to steel myself against many appeals and favorable offers-yes, and even menaces.
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What yet remains to do is in your hands; but my hope is that the more the defendant has pestered you with his solicitations—I observed just now what he was up to in front of the courthouse-more likely I am to obtain justice. For I would not insult any of you by imagining that you will be indifferent to the cause in which you so heartily supported me before, or that, in order to grant Meidias immunity for future outrages, any juryman remembering his oath will give other than what he considers a righteous verdict.
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Now if, men of Athens, I were going to accuse Meidias of unconstitutional proposals or of misconduct on an embassy or of any offence of that sort, I should not feel justified in appealing for your sympathy, for I consider that in such cases the plaintiff ought to confine himself to proving his case, though the defendant may have recourse to prayers. But since Meidias bribed the umpires and so robbed my tribe unfairly of the prize,
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since I in person was struck by him and insulted as perhaps no chorus-master was ever insulted before, and since I am here to follow up the verdict which the Assembly pronounced in indignation and anger at such conduct, for these reasons I shall not shrink even from an appeal to you. For, if I may say so, it is now I who am in the position of a defendant, if indeed to obtain no redress for an insult is the real calamity.
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Therefore, gentlemen of the jury, I appeal to you all, and implore you first to grant me a favorable hearing, and secondly, if I prove that the insults of Meidias touch, not me only, but you and the laws and the whole body of citizens, to come at once to any rescue and to your own. For the case stands thus, Athenians. I was the victim and it was my person that was then outraged; but now the question to be fought out and decided is whether Meidias is to be allowed to repeat his performances and insult anyone and everyone of you with impunity.
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Therefore if perhaps anyone of you hitherto assumed that this action was brought from private motives, when he now reflects that this is a matter of general concern, and that public interest demands that no one shall be allowed to act in this way, let him grant me an attentive hearing, and then let him give what seems to him the fairest verdict. But first the clerk shall read you the law which provides for the lodging of plaints in the Assembly; after that I will try to enlighten you on other points. Recite the law. The Law The Prytanes shall call a meeting of the Assembly in the temple of Dionysus on the day next after the Pandia. At this meeting they shall first deal with religious matters; next they shall lay before it the plaints lodged concerning the procession or the contests at the Dionysia, namely such as have not been satisfied.
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This is the law, Athenians, which provides for the lodging of a plaint. It directs, as you have heard, that a meeting of the Assembly shall be held in the temple of Dionysus after the Pandia, and that at this meeting, when the chairmen for the day have dealt with the official acts of the chief Archon, they shall also deal with any offences or illegal acts in connection with the festival—a sound and expedient law, Athenians, as the facts of the present case attest. For when it appears that certain persons, with this threat overhanging them, can be as insolent as ever, how should we expect that such men would behave, if there were no risk and no trial to be faced?
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Now I want to read to you the next law as well, because it will illustrate to all of you the self-restraint of the citizens in general and the hardihood of the defendant. Read the law. The Law Evegorus proposed that, on the occasion of the procession in honor of Dionysus in Peiraeus with the comedies and tragedies, the procession at the Lenaeum with the comedies and tragedies, the procession at the City Dionysia with the boys’ contests and the revel and the comedies and tragedies. and also at the procession and contest of the Thargelia, it shall not be lawful on those days to distrain or to seize any debtors’ property, even if they are defaulters. If anyone transgresses any of these regulations, he shall be liable to prosecution by the aggrieved party, and public plaints against him as an offender may be lodged at the meeting of the Assembly in the temple of Dionysus, as is provided by statute in the case of other offenders.
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You will observe, gentlemen of the jury, that whereas in the first law the public plaint may be lodged against those who violate the laws of the festival, in the latter law you have sanctioned plaints against those who exact money from defaulting debtors or seize any property or use violence to that end. So far from thinking it right that any man’s person should be outraged on those days, or that any equipment should be damaged which a citizen provides out of his private means for a public service, you have even conceded that what by law and by verdict belongs to the winner of a suit should remain the property of the loser and original owner, at any rate during the festival.
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You therefore, Athenians, have all risen to such a height of benevolence and piety that during those days you have even suspended the exaction of penalties due for past offences; but Meidias, as I shall prove, chose those very same days to commit offences that call for the severest punishment. I intend to describe in order each outrage of which I have been the victim, before I speak of the blows in which his attacks culminated, for there is not a single one of those attacks for which he will not be shown to have deserved death.
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Two years ago the tribe of Pandionis had failed to appoint a chorus-master, and when the Assembly met at which the law directs the Archons to assign the flute-players by lot to the choruses, there was a heated discussion and mutual recrimination between the Archon and the overseers of the tribe.
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Thereupon I came forward and volunteered to act as chorus-master, and at the drawing of the lots I was fortunate enough to get first choice of a flute-player.
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You, Athenians, all of you, welcomed with the utmost cordiality both these incidents—my voluntary offer and my stroke of luck; and your cheers and applause expressed your approval of my conduct and your sympathy with my good fortune. But there seems to have been one solitary exception, Meidias, who in his chagrin kept up a constant fire of insults, trifling or serious, during the whole period of my service.
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Now the trouble that he caused by opposing the exemption of our chorus from military service, or by putting himself forward as overseer at the Dionysia and demanding election, these and other similar annoyances I will pass over in silence; for I am not unaware that although to myself, the victim of his persecution and insolence, each of these acts caused as much irritation as any really serious offence, yet to the rest of you, who were not directly concerned, these things in themselves would hardly seem to call for litigation. I shall therefore confine myself to what will excite indignation in all of you alike.
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His subsequent conduct, which I am now going to describe, passes all limits; and indeed I should never have ventured to arraign him today, had I not previously secured his immediate conviction in the Assembly. The sacred apparel—for all apparel provided for use at a festival I regard as being sacred until after it has been used—and the golden crowns,which I ordered for the decoration of the chorus, he plotted to destroy,men of Athens, by a nocturnal raid on the premises of my goldsmith. And he did destroy them, though not completely, for that was beyond his power. And no one can say that he ever yet heard of anyone daring or perpetrating such an outrage in this city.
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But not content with this, men of
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, he actually corrupted the trainer of my chorus; and if Telephanes, the flute-player, had not proved the staunchest friend to me, if he had not seen through the fellow’s game and sent him about his business, if he had not felt it his duty to train the chorus and weld them into shape himself, we could not have taken part in the competition, Athenians; the chorus would have come in untrained and we should have been covered with ignominy. Nor did his insolence stop even there. It was so unrestrained that he bribed the crowned Archon himself; he banded the choristers against me; he bawled and threatened, standing beside the umpires as they took the oath he blocked the gangways from the wings,
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nailing up those public thoroughfares without public authority; he never ceased to cause me untold damage and annoyance.
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Of those outrages which were committed in public or before the umpires in the theater, you are yourselves my witnesses, all of you, gentlemen of the jury. And surely the statements on which most reliance should be placed are those of which the jury can themselves attest the truth. So after he had already corrupted the umpires in the men’s contest, he put the cap, as it were, on all his previous acts of wantonness by two outrages: he assaulted my person, and he was chiefly responsible for preventing my tribe, which was winning, from gaining the prize.
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These were the crimes and brutalities which Meidias committed in connection with the festival against my fellow-tribesmen and myself. It was for these, men of Athens, that I lodged my public plaint; and there are many besides, of which I will describe to you immediately as many as I can. But I have to tell of many other acts of unmitigated rascality and insolence, directed against many of yourselves, and many daring crimes of this blackguard.
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Some of his victims, gentlemen of the jury, suffered in silence, because they were cowed by him and his self-confidence, or by his gang of bullies, his wealth and all his other resources; others tried to obtain redress and failed; others again made terms with him, perhaps because they thought that the best policy. Those, then, who were induced to do so have obtained the satisfaction due to themselves; but of the satisfaction due to the laws, by breaking which Meidias wronged them and is wronging me now and every other citizen—of that satisfaction you are the dispensers.
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Therefore include all the offences in one sweeping penalty, whatever you consider just.I will first, then, adduce proofs of the outrages against myself, next of those against you. After that, Athenians, I will examine all the rest of his life and will show that he deserves not one death, but a thousand. First please take and read the deposition of the goldsmith. The Deposition
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I, Pammenes, son of Pammenes, of Erchia, have a goldsmith’s shop in the Agora, where I reside and carry on my business. When Demosthenes, for whom I am a witness, commissioned me to fashion a golden crown,If this document were worth emending, we should have to read στεφάνους χρυσοῦς here and τοὺς στεφάνους below, to tally with Dem. 21.16. and to make a gold-embroidered robe, that he might wear them at the procession in honor of Dionysus; and when I had completed them and had them ready by me, Meidias, who is being prosecuted by Demosthenes, broke into my premises by night, having also others with him, and tried to destroy the crown and the robe, and a part of them he injured, but was not able to destroy them completely, because I appeared and prevented him.
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Now I have much to say also, men of
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, about the wrongs which he inflicted on others, as I told you at the beginning of my speech, and I have made a collection of his outrageous and insulting acts, which you shall hear in a moment. The collection was indeed an easy matter, for the victims themselves applied to me.
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But before I come to that, I want to speak about the tricks by which I am told he will try to deceive you; for I think it very necessary for me to put my remarks on that subject before you, and very important for you to hear them. Why so? Because the same argument that prevents your deception will help you to cast your votes in accordance with justice and your oath. You must pay attention to this argument above all others and bear it in mind, so as to meet each separate point in his speech.
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And first, it is pretty evident from his private conversation as reported to me that he will say that, if I had really suffered from him as I assert, I ought to have brought various personal suits against him, one for willful damage, arising out of the destruction of the robes and golden crowns, and another for assault, arising out of his alleged attack on my person; but that I ought most emphatically not to have brought him to a public trial and proposed a penalty or a fine which he must pay.
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But of one thing I am perfectly certain, and you should be equally so-that if I had not lodged the public plaint but had brought a civil action, the opposite argument would have been used against me, that if there was any truth in my statements, I ought to have lodged a public plaint and claimed redress at the time when the offences were committed; for the chorus was a state-chorus, the apparel was being prepared entirely for a public festival, and I, the aggrieved party, was official chorus-master. Who then would dream of any other form of redress than that which the law provides against those who profane a festival?
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I am sure that he would have said all that in those circumstances. For it is, I believe, the cue for the defendant, the man who has done a wrong, to try and shuffle out of the method actually adopted to bring him to punishment and to say that a different method should have been employed; but it is the duty of sensible jurymen to ignore such evasions and to chastise anyone whom they convict of an outrage.
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Do not allow him to say that the law affords me a choice of personal suits or an indictment for assault. That is true; but he has to prove that he has not done what I have charged him with, or that in doing it he has not profaned the festival, for that is the ground on which I based my public plaint against him, and that is the question on which you must presently cast your votes. But if I, waiving the profit which a private suit would bring, entrust his punishment to the State, and if I have chosen this particular form of action from which I can receive no benefit myself, then surely it ought to win me your favour and not prejudice my case.
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Now I know that he will also make great use of this argument: Do not deliver me into Demosthenes’ hands; do not ruin me to oblige Demosthenes. Because I am at war with him, will you ruin me? That is the sort of language that he will, I am sure, use again and again, with the object of exciting prejudice against me.
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But the truth is quite otherwise. You never deliver a malefactor to his accuser; for when someone has been wronged, you do not exact the penalty in such a form as the injured party urges upon you in each case. On the contrary, laws were laid down by you before the particular offences were committed, when the future wrongdoer and his victim were equally unknown. What is the effect of these laws? They ensure for every citizen the opportunity of obtaining redress if he is wronged. Therefore when you punish a man who breaks the laws, you are not delivering him over to his accusers; you are strengthening the arm of the law in your own interests.
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But surely when he says, Demosthenes was insulted, he is met by an argument that is just and impartial and in the interests of all. It was not against the individual named Demosthenes that his brutality was directed on that occasion, but also against your chorus-master; and what that implies you may realize from the following considerations.
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You know of course that of the judges who sit in this court none has the name of Judge, but each has some name of his own. Therefore if a man is guilty of assault or slander against anyone of them in his private capacity, he will stand his trial on an indictment for assault or in a suit for slander; but if he assails him as judge, he will incur total disfranchisement. Why so? Because at once by the mere act he is outraging your laws, your public crown of office, and the name that belongs to the State, for Judge is not a private name but a state-title.
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In the same way again, if you strike or abuse the Archon when wearing his crown, you are disfranchised; but if you assault him as a private citizen, you are liable to a private suit. Moreover, this is true not only of these officials, but of everyone to whom the State grants the inviolability of a crowned office or of any other honor. Therefore in my case also, if on any other day in the year Meidias had wronged me as a private citizen, he would have had to give me private satisfaction;
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but if all his outrages are shown to have been aimed at your chorus-master during the holy days of the festival, it is right that he should face public resentment and pay a public penalty. For the chorus master was insulted as well as Demosthenes, and that is a concern of the State, as well as the fact that this occurred on the very days on which the laws expressly forbid it. When you are framing your laws, you must scrutinize their purport; but when you have passed them, you must uphold them and put them in force, for that is required by your oath and by justice as well.
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You had the law—an ancient one—of damage; you had the law of battery and the law of assault. Now if it had been sufficient that those guilty at the Dionysia of any of these offences should be punished according to these laws, there would have been no need for this further law. But it was not sufficient, and the proof of this is that you made a law to protect the sanctity of the god during the Holy Month. If, then, anyone is liable both under those pre-existing laws and under this subsequent one as well as all the rest of the laws, is he for that reason to escape punishment, or should he in fairness suffer a heavier one? I think that it should be the heavier punishment.
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I have been told that Meidias goes about inquiring and collecting examples of people who have at any time been assaulted, and that these people are going to give evidence and describe their experiences to you; for instance, men of Athens, the Chairman for the day who is said to have been struck by Polyzelus in your court, the judge who was lately struck when trying to rescue the flute-girl, and similar cases. He imagines that if he can point to many other victims of serious assault, you will be less indignant at the assault committed upon me!
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But it seems to me, Athenians, that it would be reasonable for you to do just the reverse, since your duty is to be solicitous for the common good of all. For who of you is unaware that the reason for the frequency of these assaults is the failure to punish the offenders, and that the only way to prevent such assaults in the future is adequately to punish every offender who is caught? Therefore, if it is to your interest to deter others, those cases are an additional reason for punishing Meidias, and punishing him the more severely in proportion to their number and their seriousness; but if you want to encourage him and everybody, you must let him off.
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Then again we shall find that he has not the same claim to consideration as these others. For in the first case the man who struck the judge had three excuses: he was drunk, he was in love, and he did not know what he was doing in the darkness and the night. Polyzelus again explained that owing to his ungovernable temper he had lost his head when he committed the offence; there was no hostility behind the act and no intention to insult. But Meidias cannot plead any of these excuses, for he was my enemy, and he assaulted me willfully by daylight, and not only on that, but on every occasion he has shown a deliberate intention to insult me.
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And indeed I can see no comparison between my own conduct and that of those others. In the first case it will be proved that the judge took no thought or concern for you or for the laws, but was privately induced by a sum of money—I cannot say how much—to drop his action. In the same way the man who was struck by Polyzelus was privately squared, laughed in his sleeve at you and your laws, and never even prosecuted his assailant.
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Such statements, then, are quite in point if one wishes to accuse those men today, but as a defence of Meidias against my indictments they are the very last pleas that should be urged. For my conduct was clean contrary to theirs. It will be proved that I never got, or tried to get, any advantage for myself, but religiously observed, and have now restored to your keeping, the task of avenging the laws, the god, and your interests. Do not then allow him to make these statements, or if he persists, do not give him credence as if his plea were just. If he finds that this is your fixed determination, he will have nothing to say, not a word.
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For what sort of pretext, what decent and moderate excuse, can he show for his conduct? Anger? Possibly that will be his plea. But whereas in cases where a sudden loss of self-control has impelled a man even to inflict a wanton insult, it is open to him to say that he has acted in anger; if, on the other hand, he is detected in a continuous course of law-breaking, spread over many days, surely this is far from a mere fit of anger and he stands convicted of a deliberate policy of insult.
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Very well; since he has clearly done what I accuse him of, and has done it by way of insult, we must now consider the laws, gentlemen of the jury, for it is in accordance with the laws that you have sworn to give your verdict. Observe, moreover, that the laws treat the willful and insolent transgressors as deserving more resentment and a heavier punishment than other classes of offenders.
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First then, all the laws of damage—to take these first—order the offender to pay the amount twice over if the damage is willful, but only once if it is involuntary. This is reasonable, because, while the injured party is in any case entitled to relief, the law does not ordain that the resentment against the aggressor should be the same, whether his act is voluntary or involuntary. Again, the laws of homicide punish willful murder with death, perpetual exile, and confiscation of goods, but accidental homicide they treat with much consideration and charity.
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It is not only in these, but in all cases, that the laws may be seen to be severe against premeditated outrages. For how is it that if a man who has lost his case fails to pay, the law thereupon is not content with a private suit for ejectment, but directs the imposition of a further fine to the treasury? Or again, how is it that if a man takes from another by mutual consent a sum of one, two, or ten talents, and then fraudulently withholds it, the State has no concern with him; but if a man, taking something that would merit only a trifling fine, keeps it back by force, then the laws direct the jury to impose an additional fine for the treasury equal to that paid to the private owner?
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The answer is that the legislator regarded every deed of violence as a public offence, committed against those also who are not directly concerned. For force belongs to the few, but the laws to all alike; and the man who agreed to the transaction can right himself privately, but the victim of violence needs relief at the hands of the State. On this principle, for the actual assault the law grants everyone the right to prosecute, but makes over the whole of the fine to the State. The legislator considered that the State, as well as the injured party, was wronged by the author of the outrage, and that his punishment was sufficient compensation for the victim, who ought not to make money for himself out of such wrongs.
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Indeed he went to such extreme lengths that even if a slave was assaulted, he granted him the same right of bringing a public action. He thought that he ought to look, not at the rank of the sufferer, but at the nature of the act, and when he found the act unjustifiable, he would not give it his sanction either in regard to a slave or in any other case. For nothing, men of Athens, nothing in the world is more intolerable than a personal outrage, nor is there anything that more deserves your resentment. Read me the actual law with regard to it. There is nothing like hearing the law’s own words. The Law
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If anyone assaults any child or woman or man, whether free or slave, or commits any unlawful act against anyone of these, any Athenian citizen who desires so to do, being qualified, may indict him before the Judges; and the Judges shall bring the case before the Heliastic Court within thirty days from the date of the indictment, unless some public business prevents, in which case it shall be brought on the earliest possible date. Whomsoever the Court shall condemn, it shall at once assess the punishment or the fine which he is considered to deserve. In all cases where an indictment is entered, as the law directs, if anyone fails to prosecute, or after prosecution fails to obtain one fifth of the votes of the jury, he shall pay a thousand drachmas to the Treasury. If he is fined for the assault, he shall be imprisoned until the fine is paid, provided that the offence was committed against a freeman.
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Athenians, you hear the humanity of the law, which does not permit even slaves to be assaulted. In heaven’s name, think what this means. Suppose someone carried this law to the barbarous nations from whom we import our slaves; suppose he praised you and described your city to them in these words:
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There are in Greece men so mild and humane in disposition that though they have often been wronged by you, and though they have inherited a natural hostility towards you, yet they permit no insult to be offered even to the men whom they have bought for a price and keep as their slaves. Nay, they have publicly established this law forbidding such insult, and they have already punished many of the transgressors with death.
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If the barbarians heard these words and understood their import, do you not think that they would unanimously appoint you their protectors?
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As regards this law then, which is so well esteemed among the Greeks and would be well esteemed among the barbarians also, consider what penalty he who transgresses it will have to pay before he has paid his deserts.
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Now if I had not been chorus-master, men of Athens, when I was thus maltreated by Meidias, it is only the personal insult that one would have condemned; but under the circumstances I think one would be justified in condemning also the impiety of the act. You surely realize that all your choruses and hymns to the god are sanctioned, not only by the regulations of the Dionysia, but also by the oracles, in all of which, whether given at Delphi or at Dodona, you will find a solemn injunction to the State to set up dances after the ancestral custom, to fill the streets with the savour of sacrifice, and to wear garlands.
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Please take and read the actual oracles. The Oracles You I address, Pandion’s townsmen and sons of Erechtheus, who appoint your feasts by the ancient rites of your fathers. See you forget not Bacchus, and joining all in the dances Down your broad-spaced streets, in thanksἱστάναι χάριν, if the Greek is sound, seems to be a portmanteau phrase to set up a dance in gratitude. The oracle quoted may perfectly well be genuine. for the gifts of the season, Crown each head with a wreath, while incense reeks on the altars. For health sacrifice and pray to Zeus Most High, to Heracles, and to Apollo the Protector; for good fortune to Apollo, god of the streets, to Leto, and to Artemis; and along the streets set wine-bowls and dances, and wear garlands after the manner of your fathers in honor of all gods and all goddesses of Olympus, raising right hands and left in supplication,Translating λιτάς, Weil’s suggestion. and remember your gifts.
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Oracles from Dodona To the people of the Athenians the prophet of Zeus announces. Whereas ye have let pass the seasons of the sacrifice and of the sacred embassy, he bids you send nine chosen envoys, and that right soon. To Zeus of the ShipThere was a temple at Dodona dedicated to Zeus under this title to commemorate a rescue from shipwreck. sacrifice three oxen and with each ox three sheep; to Dione one ox and a brazen table for the offering which the people of the Athenians have offered. The prophet of Zeus in Dodona announces. To Dionysus pay public sacrifices and mix a bowl of wine and set up dances; to Apollo the Averter sacrifice an ox and wear garlands, both free men and slaves, and observe one day of rest; to Zeus, the giver of wealth, a white bull.
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Besides these oracles, men of Athens, there are many others addressed to our city, and excellent oracles they are. Now what conclusion ought you to draw from them? That while they prescribe the sacrifices to the gods indicated in each oracle, to every oracle that is published they add the injunction to set up dances and to wear garlands after the manner of our ancestors.
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Therefore in the case of all the choruses that are constituted, together with their chorus-masters, during the days on which we meet in competition, these oracles make it clear that we wear our crowns as your representatives, the winner as well as the one destined to be last of all; it is not until the day of the prize-giving that the victor receives his own special crown. If, then, a man commits a malicious assault on any member or master of these choruses, especially during the actual contest in the sacred precinct of the god, can we deny that he is guilty of impiety?
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Moreover, you are aware that, although anxious to exclude aliens from the contest, you do not grant unlimited right to any chorus-master to summon for scrutiny any member of a chorus
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; if he summons him, he is fined fifty drachmas, and a thousand drachmas if he orders him to sit among the spectators. What is the object? To protect the crowned official, who is doing public service to the god, from being maliciously summoned or annoyed or insulted on that day.
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So even the man who in due course of law summons a member of a chorus will not escape a fine. And shall not he be punished who in contempt of all the laws thus publicly strikes the master of a chorus? Surely it is useless for your laws to be thus well and humanely framed for the protection of the humbler citizen, if those who disobey and flout them are not to incur the resentment of you who are, for the time being, entrusted with their administration.
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And now I solemnly call your attention to another point. I shall beg you not to be offended if I mention by name some persons who have fallen into misfortune; for I swear to you that in doing so I have no intention of casting reproach upon any man; I only want to show you how carefully all the rest of you avoid anything like violent or insulting behavior. There is, for instance, Sannio, the trainer of the tragic choruses, who was convicted of shirking military service and so found himself in trouble.
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After that misfortune he was hired by a chorus-master—Theozotides, if I am not mistaken—who was keen to win a victory in the tragedies. Well, at first the rival masters were indignant and threatened to debar him, but when they saw that the theater was full and the crowd assembled for the contest, they hesitated, they gave way, and no one laid a finger on him. One can see that the forbearance which piety inspires in every one of you is such that Sannio has been training choruses ever since, not hindered even by his private enemies, much less by any of the chorus-masters.
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Then again there is Aristeides of the tribe of Oeneis, who has had a similar misfortune. He is now an old man and perhaps less useful in a chorus, but he was once chorus-leader for his tribe. You know, of course, that if the leader is withdrawn, the rest of the chorus is done for. But in spite of the keen rivalry of many of the chorus-masters, not one of them looked at the possible advantage or ventured to remove him or prevent him from performing. Since this involved laying hands on him, and since he could not be cited before the Archon as if he were an alien whom it was desired to eject, every man shrank from being seen as the personal author of such an outrage.
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Then is not this, gentlemen of the jury, a shocking and intolerable position? On the one hand, chorus-masters, who think that such a course might bring them victory and who have in many cases spent all their substance on their public services, have never dared to lay hands even on one whom the law permits them to touch, but show such caution, such piety, such moderation that, in spite of their expenditure and their eager competition, they restrain themselves and respect your wishes and your zeal for the festival. Meidias, on the other hand, a private individual who has been put to no expense, just because he has fallen foul of a man whom he hates—a man, remember, who is spending his money as chorus-master and who has full rights of citizenship—insults him and strikes him and cares nothing for the festival, for the laws, for your opinion, or for the god’s honor.
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Now although men have quarrelled often enough, whether on private or on public grounds, no one has ever been so lost to shame as to venture on such conduct as this. Yet it is said that the famous Iphicrates once had a serious quarrel with Diocles of the Pitthean deme, and, to make matters worse, Iphicrates’ brother Teisias happened to be a chorus-master in competition with Diocles. Iphicrates was a wealthy man with many friends and had a high opinion of himself, as a man would naturally have who had earned so many honors and distinctions at your hands;
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but Iphicrates never went under cover of night to the goldsmiths’ shops, he never ripped up the costumes intended for the festival, he never bribed the instructor and hindered the training of the chorus, he never played any of the tricks that Meidias repeatedly practised. No, he submitted to the laws and to the wishes of his fellow-citizens, and patiently witnessed the victory and the crowning of his enemy. And he was right; for he felt that such submission was due to the constitution under which he himself had enjoyed such prosperity.
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Take another instance. We all know that Philostratus of
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was one of the accusers when Chabrias
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was tried for his life on charges relating to Oropus, and that he showed himself the bitterest of them all, and that afterwards he won the prize at the Dionysia with a chorus of boys. Yet Chabrias neither struck him nor snatched the crown off his head nor in any way intruded where he had no right.
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I could mention many others who on various grounds have quarrelled with their neighbors, but I have never seen or heard of anyone who carried his insolence so far as to behave like this. And I am quite sure that no one here can recall any case where a man, involved in a public or private dispute, has taken his stand beside the umpires while they were being named, or dictated the oath when they were being sworn, or paraded his hostility on any such occasion.
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These and all similar acts, Athenians, are partly excusable in a chorus-master who is carried away by emulation; but to harass a man with one’s hostility, deliberately and on every occasion, and to boast one’s own power as superior to the laws, that, by Heaven! is cruel and unjust and contrary to your interests. For if each man when he becomes chorus-master could foresee this result: If So-and-so is my enemy—Meidias for example or anyone else equally rich and unscrupulous—first I shall be robbed of my victory, even if I make a better show than any of my competitors next I shall be worsted at every point and exposed to repeated insults: who is so irrational or such a poor creature that he would voluntarily consent to spend a single drachma?
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I suppose what tends to make everyone public-spirited and liberal with his money is the reflection that under a democracy each man has his share of just and equal rights. Now I, men of Athens, was deprived of those rights through this man’s acts, and, quite apart from the insults I endured, I was robbed of my victory. Yet I shall prove to all of you beyond a doubt that Meidias, without committing any outrageous offence, without insulting or striking me, had it in his power both to cause me trouble and to display his public spirit to you in a legitimate way, so that I should not be able to open my lips against him.
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This is what he ought to have done, Athenians. When I offered myself to the Assembly as chorus-master for the tribe of Pandionis, he should have got up and offered himself as a rival master for his own tribe of Erechtheis he should have put himself on equal terms with me and spent his money as I was spending mine and tried in that way to wrest the victory from me; but not even as my rival should he have thus insulted and struck me.
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As it was, he did not adopt this course, by which he might have done honor to the people, nor did he work off his high spirits in this way. No; I was his target, I who in my madness, men of Athens,—for it may be madness to engage in something beyond one’s power perhaps in my ambition, volunteered for chorus-master. He harassed me with a persecution so undisguised and so brutal that neither the sacred costumes nor the chorus nor at last even my own person was safe from his hands.
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Now if there is anyone of you, Athenians, whose anger against Meidias falls short of a demand for his death, he is wrong. For it is neither just nor proper that the forbearance of the victim should contribute to the acquittal of a man who has put no check on his insolence. The latter you should punish as if the results of his conduct had been utterly irremediable; to the former you should show your goodwill by favouring his cause.
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You cannot retort that such acts have never had any serious consequences, but that I am now exaggerating the incident and representing it as formidable. That is wide of the mark. But all, or at least many, know what Euthynus, the once famous wrestler, a youngster, did to Sophilus the prize-fighter. He was a dark, brawny fellow. I am sure some of you know the man I mean. He met him in
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at a gathering—just a private pleasure-party-and because he imagined he was insulting him, took such summary vengeance that he actually killed him.
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It is a matter of common knowledge that Euaeon, the brother of Leodamas, killed Boeotus at a public banquet and entertainment in revenge for a single blow.
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For it was not the blow but the indignity that roused the anger. To be struck is not the serious thing for a free man, serious though it is, but to be struck in wanton insolence. Many things, Athenians, some of which the victim would find it difficult to put into words, may be done by the striker—by gesture, by look, by tone; when he strikes in wantonness or out of enmity; with the fist or on the cheek. These are the things that provoke men and make them beside themselves, if they are unused to insult. No description, men of Athens, can bring the outrage as vividly before the hearers as it appears in truth and reality to the victim and to the spectators.
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In the name of all the gods, Athenians, I ask you to reflect and calculate in your own minds how much more reason I had to be angry when I suffered so at the hands of Meidias, than Euaeon when he killed Boeotus. Euaeon was struck by an acquaintance, who was drunk at the time, in the presence of six or seven witnesses, who were also acquaintances and might be depended upon to denounce the one for his offence and commend the other if he had patiently restrained his feelings after such an affront, especially as Euaeon had gone to sup at a house which he need never have entered at all.
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But I was assaulted by a personal enemy early in the day, when he was sober, prompted by insolence, not by wine, in the presence of many foreigners as well as citizens, and above all in a temple which I was strictly obliged to enter by virtue of my office. And, Athenians, I consider that I was prudent, or rather happily inspired, when I submitted at the time and was not impelled to any irremediable action; though I fully sympathize with Euaeon and anyone else who, when provoked, takes the law into his own hands.
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My views were, I think, shared at that trial by many of the jury; for I am told that he was only condemned by a single vote, and yet he had no recourse to tears or supplications and made no effort, small or great, to win the favour of his judges. Let us assume, then, that the judges who condemned him did so, not because he retaliated, but because he did it in such a way as to kill the aggressor, while the judges who acquitted him allowed even this licence of revenge to a man who had suffered an outrage on his person.
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What follows? I who was so careful not to cause any irremediable mischief that I never retaliated—from whom am I to seek redress for my sufferings? I think it should be from you and from the laws. I think that you should set up a precedent for all to follow, that no one who wantonly assaults and outrages another should be punished by the victim himself in hot blood, but must be brought into your court, because it is you who confirm and uphold the protection granted by the laws to those who are injured.
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Now I expect, gentlemen of the jury, that some of you are anxious to hear about the quarrel between Meidias and myself; for you must suppose that no human being could treat a fellow-countryman with such violence and brutality, unless he had a long account to settle with him. Well, I am quite willing to give you a detailed account of this quarrel from its inception, so that you may understand that on this score too, as I shall prove, he owes me reparation. The narrative shall be brief, though I may seem to go a long way back for the start.
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When I brought my action against my guardians for the recovery of my patrimony, being a mere lad, neither acquainted with Meidias nor even aware of his existence—would that I were not acquainted with him now!—when my suit was due to come on in three or four days, Meidias and his brother suddenly burst into my house and challenged me to take over their trierarchy.
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It was the brother, Thrasylochus, who submitted his name and made the challenge; but the real author of all these proceedings was Meidias.
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And first they forced the doors of the apartments, assuming that these became their property by the terms of the challenge; next in the presence of my sister, who was a young girl still living at home, they used foul language such as only men of their stamp would use—nothing would induce me to repeat to you some of their expressions—and they uttered unrestrained abuse of my mother and myself and all my family. But, what was more shocking still, from words they proceeded to deeds, and they were going to drop the lawsuits, claiming them as their own, to oblige my guardians.
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All this is ancient history, though I expect some of you remember it, for all Athens heard of the challenge and of the plot they then hatched and of their brutal behavior. As for me, being quite alone in the world and a mere lad, I did not want to lose the property that was still in the hands of my guardians, and I expected to obtain, not the trifle that I was actually able to recover, but all that I knew I had been robbed of; so I gave them twenty minas, the sum which they had paid for the performance of their trierarchy by deputy. Such was the scandalous treatment that I received at their hands.
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Next I brought an action against Meidias for slander and gained the verdict by default, for he did not appear. He had put himself into my power by failing to pay the fine, but I did not lay hands on his property. Instead I obtained leave to bring an action for ejectment, but to this day I have never been able to commence it, such shifts and quibbles does he find to thwart me. While I think it my duty to proceed thus with caution, legally and constitutionally, Meidias, as you learn, thought fit to treat with brutal insolence not only me and mine, but also my fellow-tribesmen through me.
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To prove the truth of this, please call my witnesses, so that you may know that, before obtaining legal redress for my former injuries, I have again been insulted in the way that you have heard. The Deposition We, Callisthenes of Sphettus, Diognetus of Thoricus, Mnesitheus of Alopece, know that Demosthenes, for whom we appear, has brought an action for ejectment against Meidias, who is now also being publicly prosecuted by him, and that eight years have now passed since that action, and that Meidias has been the cause of all the delay by repeated excuses and procrastinations.
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Hear now what he has done, men of Athens, in the matter of the legal action and observe his insolent and overbearing conduct on each occasion. In that action—I mean the one in which I obtained a verdict against him—the arbitrator assigned to me was Strato of Phalerum, a man of small means and no experience, but in other respects quite a good fellow; but his appointment proved the unhappy man’s ruin—a ruin undeserved, unjust, and in every way scandalous.
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This Strato, acting as arbitrator, when the appointed day arrived and all the legal delays had been exhausted—counter-pleas, demurrers, and the rest of them—and there was not a trick left, at first begged me to abandon the arbitration, and then to postpone it till the next day, and at the last, as I continued to refuse and Meidias did not appear in court, and it was getting late, he gave his decision against him.
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It was now evening and growing dark. Up comes this fellow Meidias to the office of the Archons, and finds them just leaving and Strato already making his way home after having handed to them his judgement of guilty by default. This I learned from one of the bystanders. Well, at first he had the impudence to try and persuade Strato to report a judgement for the defendant instead of one for the plaintiff, and he wanted the Archons to alter the record and offered them fifty drachmas.
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But finding that they resented the offer and that he could persuade neither Archons nor arbitrator, he threatened them and blackguarded them and went off and—what do you think he did? Just observe his malignity.
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He appealed against the arbitration but omitted the oath, thus allowing the verdict against him to be made absolute, and he was recorded as unsworn. Then, wishing to conceal his real object,
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he waited for the last day
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for appeal against the arbitrators, which falls in Thargelion or Scirophorion, a day on which some of the arbitrators turned up but others did not;
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he induced the presiding arbitrator to put it to the vote contrary to all the laws, because Meidias had not appended the name of a single witness to the summons; he denounces Strato in his absence and in the absence of witnesses, and gets him struck off the roll of arbitrators and disfranchised. And so a citizen of Athens, because Meidias lost his suit by default, has been deprived of all his civic rights, and has been irrevocably disfranchised; and it is unsafe for him to bring an action against Meidias when wronged, or to act as arbitrator for him, or even, it seems, to walk the same street with him.
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Now you must consider the transaction from this point of view. Estimate what loss Meidias must have suffered before he could plan such a dire revenge against a fellow-citizen; and if it was something really terrible and overwhelming, he may be forgiven, but if it was nothing of the sort, mark the insolent brutality with which he treats all whom he comes across. Well, what loss has he suffered? He was cast, you reply, in a big lawsuit, so big that he has lost all his property.
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But the lawsuit only involved a thousand drachmas. True, you will say; but the galling thing is to be made to pay unfairly, and it was the unfairness of it that caused him to let the day of payment pass unnoticed.
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But he noticed his mistake the same day, which is the strongest possible proof that
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had done him no wrong; and he has not yet paid a single drachma. But of that later.
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But of course he could have moved for a fresh trial on the ground of nullity, and so made me the object of his litigation as at the first. But no; that was not his game. To save him from defending a suit in which the penalty was fixed by law at ten minas—the suit in which he neglected to apppear—to save him from paying the penalty if guilty or if innocent, a citizen of Athens must needs be disfranchised, and must obtain neither pardon nor right of defence nor any sort of equitable treatment, privileges extended even to those whose guilt is established.
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But now that he has disfranchised the man he wanted to, and you have indulged him in this; now that he has sated that shameless temper that prompted him to this course, has he finished the business? Has he paid the fine, to escape which he ruined the poor fellow? Not a brass farthing of it to this day! He submits rather to be the defendant in an action for ejectment. So the one man is disfranchised and ruined on a side issue; the other is unscathed and is playing havoc with the laws, the arbitrators, and everything else that he pleases.
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Moreover, he has secured the validity of the award against the arbitrator, which he maneuvered to get without serving a summons, while the suit which he lost to me, wittingly and after due summons, this he renders invalid. Yet if such is the vengeance that he claims from arbitrators who have given judgement against him by default, what vengeance ought you to wreak on a man who openly and wantonly transgresses your laws? For if disfranchisement and loss of all legal and civil rights is a fitting punishment for that other offence, death seems an inadequate one for this reckless outrage.
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However, to prove the truth of my statements, please call the witnesses, and also read the law concerning arbitrators. The Witnesses We, Nicostratus of Myrrhinus and Phanias of Aphidna, know that Demosthenes, for whom we appear, and Meidias, who is being prosecuted by Demosthenes, when Demosthenes brought his action against him for slander, chose Strato as arbitrator; and when the statutory day arrived, Meidias did not appear in court but abandoned the case. Judgement having gone by default against Meidias, we know that Meidias tried to induce Strato, the arbitrator, and us, who were at that time Archons, to reverse the judgement against him, and he offered us fifty drachmas, and, when we resented his offer, he threatened us and so departed. Also we know that on this account Strato was victimized by Meidias and was disfranchised contrary to all justice.
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Read also the law concerning arbitrators. The Law If any parties are in dispute concerning private contracts and wish to choose any arbitrator, it shall be lawful for them to choose whomsoever they wish. But when they have chosen by mutual agreement, they shall abide by his decisions and shall not transfer the same charges from him to another court, but the judgements of the arbitrator shall be final.
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Call also Strato, the victim of this persecution, for no doubt he will be allowed to stand up in court. This man, Athenians, is a poor man perhaps, but certainly not a bad man. He was once a citizen and served at the proper age in all the campaigns; he has done nothing reprehensible, yet now there he stands silent, stripped not only of all our common privileges, but also of the right to speak or complain; he is not even allowed to tell you whether he has suffered justly or unjustly.
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All this he has endured at the hands of Meidias, and from the wealth and pride of Meidias, because he himself is poor and friendless and just one of the multitude. If in violation of the laws he had accepted the fifty drachmas and changed his verdict from a condemnation to an acquittal, he would now be a full citizen, untouched by harm and sharing with the rest of us in our common rights; but because he disregarded Meidias in comparison with justice and feared the laws more than his threats, therefore he has met with this great and terrible misfortune through the act of this man.
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And then this same man, so cruel, so heartless, who has taken such dire vengeance for his wrongs—you have only his word for them, for he really suffered none—will you acquit him when you have detected him in a wanton outrage on one of the citizens? If he regards neither festivals nor temples nor law nor anything else, will you not condemn him? Will you not make an example of him?
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If not, what have you to say, gentlemen of the jury? What fair and honorable excuse, in heaven’s name, can you find for him? Is it because he is a ruffian and a blackguard? That is true enough, but surely, men of Athens, your duty is to hate such creatures, not to screen them. Is it because he is wealthy? But you will find that his wealth was the main cause of his insolence, so that your duty is to cut off the resources from which his insolence springs, rather than spare him for the sake of those resources; for to allow such a reckless and abominable creature to have such wealth at his command is to supply him with resources to use against yourselves.
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What plea, then, is left? Pity, forsooth! He will group his children round him and weep and beg you to pardon him for their sakes. That is his last move. But I need not remind you that pity is the due of those who unjustly suffer more than they can endure, not of those who are paying the penalty for the misdeeds they have committed. And who could justly pity his children, when he sees that Meidias had no pity for Strato’s children, whose distress is enhanced by the reflection that for their father’s calamity no relief is possible? For it is not a question of paying a fixed fine and regaining his civil rights; he has been disfranchised absolutely, at one stroke, by the wanton resentment of Meidias.
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Whose insolence then will be checked, and who will be deprived of the wealth that makes such outrages possible, if you are prepared to pity Meidias as though he were an innocent victim, while, if a poor man, who has done no wrong, has through him become unjustly involved in utmost ruin, you fail even to share in his indignation? It must not be. No one deserves pity who shows no pity; no one deserves pardon who grants no pardon.