Antidosis
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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It is, therefore, the duty of intelligent judges to destroy those who heap infamy upon the city and to reward those who are responsible in some degree for the tributes paid to her, more than you reward the athletes who are crowned in the great games, seeing that they win for the city a greater and more fitting glory than any athlete;
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for in contests of the body we have many rivals; but in the training of the mind everyone would concede that we stand first. And men with even a slight ability to reason ought to show the world that they reward those who excel in those activities for which the city is renowned, and they ought not to envy them nor hold an opinion of them which is the opposite of the esteem in which they are held by the rest of the Hellenes.
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But you have never troubled yourselves to do this; nay, you have so far mistaken your true interests that you are more pleased with those who cause you to be reviled than with those who cause you to be praised, and you think that those who have made many people hate the city are better friends of the demos than those who have inspired good will toward Athens in all with whom they have had to deal.
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If, however, you are wise, you will put an end to this confusion, and you will not continue, as now, to take either a hostile or a contemptuous view of philosophy; on the contrary, you will conceive that the cultivation of the mind is the noblest and worthiest of pursuits and you will urge our young men who have sufficient means and who are able to take the time for it to embrace an education and a training of this sort.
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And when they are willing to work hard and to prepare themselves to be of service to the city, you will make much of them; but when they give themselves to loose living and care for nothing else than to enjoy riotously what their fathers left to them, you will despise them and look upon them as false to the city and to the good name of their ancestors. For it will be hard enough, even though you show such an attitude of mind in either case, to get our youth to look down upon a life of ease and be willing to give their minds to their own improvement and to philosophy.
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But reflect upon the glory and the greatness of the deeds wrought by our city and our ancestors, review them in your minds and consider what kind of man was he, what was his birth and what the character of his education, who expelled the tyrants, brought the people into their own, and established our democratic state;
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what sort was he who conquered the barbarians in the battle at Marathon and won for the city the glory which has come to Athens from this victory;
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what was he who after him liberated the Hellenes and led our forefathers forth to the leadership and power which they achieved, and who, besides, appreciating the natural advantage of the Piraeus, girded the city with walls in despite of the Lacedaemonians;
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and what manner of man was he who after him filled the Acropolis with gold and silver and made the homes of the Athenians to overflow with prosperity and wealth:
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for you will find if you review the career of each of these, that it was not those who lived unscrupulously or negligently nor those who did not stand out from the multitude who accomplished these things, but that it was men who were superior and pre-eminent, not only in birth and reputation, but in wisdom and eloquence, who have been the authors of all our blessings.
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You ought to lay this lesson to heart and, while seeing to it in behalf of the mass of the people that they shall obtain their just rights in the trials of their personal disputes and that they shall have their due share of the other privileges which are common to all, you ought, on the other hand, to welcome and honor and cherish those who stand out from the multitude both in ability and in training and those who aspire to such eminence, since you know that leadership in great and noble enterprises, and the power to keep the city safe from danger and to preserve the rule of the people, rests with such men, and not with the sycophants.
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Many ideas crowd into my thoughts, but I do not know how I can make place for them; for it seems to me that while every point which I have in mind would appeal to you if I presented it by itself, yet if I attempted to discuss them all at this time, I should put too great a strain both upon myself and upon my hearers. Indeed I fear that in what I have already said to you I may have fatigued you by speaking at such length.
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For we are all so insatiable in discourse that while we prize due measure and affirm that there is nothing so precious, yet when we think that we have something of importance to say, we throw moderation to the winds, and go on adding point after point until little by little we involve ourselves in utter irrelevancies. Why, at the very moment that I say this and recognize its truth, I desire, nevertheless, to speak to you at greater length!
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For I am grieved to see the sycophant’s trade faring better than philosophy—the one attacking, the other on the defensive. Who of the men of old could have anticipated that things would come to this pass, in Athens, of all places, where we more than others plume ourselves on our wisdom?
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Things were not like that in the time of our ancestors; on the contrary, they admired the sophists, as they called them, and envied the good fortune of their disciples, while they blamed the sycophants for most of their ills. You will find the strongest proof of this in the fact that they saw fit to put Solon, who was the first of the Athenians to receive the title of sophist, at, the head of the state, while they applied to the sycophants more stringent laws than to other criminals;
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for, while they placed the trial of the greatest crimes in the hands of a single one of the courts,
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against the sycophants they instituted indictments before the Thesmothetae, impeachments before the Senate, and plaints before the General Assembly, believing that those who plied this trade exceeded all other forms of villainy; for other criminals, at any rate, try to keep their evil-doing under cover,
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while these flaunt their brutality, their misanthropy, and their contentiousness before the eyes of all. That was the way our ancestors felt about them. But you, so far from punishing the sycophants,
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actually set them up as accusers and legislators for the rest of the people. And yet there is reason for detesting them now more than at that time;
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for then it was only in matters of ordinary routine and in affairs confined to the city that they damaged their country-men. In the meantime, however, the city waxed powerful and seized the empire of the Hellenes, and our fathers,
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growing more self-assured than was meet for them, began to look with disfavor on those good men and true who had made Athens great, envying them their power, and to crave instead men who were base-born and full of insolence,
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thinking that by their bravado and contentiousness they would be able to preserve the rule of the people,
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while because of the meanness of their origin they would not become overweening nor ambitious
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to overturn the constitution. And since this change has taken place, what calamity has not been visited upon the city? What great misfortunes have these depraved natures failed to bring to pass through their speech and through their actions?
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Have they not taunted the most illustrious of the Athenians—the men who were the best able to benefit the city—with oligarchical and Lacedaemonian sympathies,
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and never ceased until they have driven them to become in fact what they were charged with being?
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Have they not by ill-treating our allies, by lodging false complaints against them,
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by stripping the best of them of their possessions—have they not so disaffected them that they have revolted against us and craved the friendship and alliance of the Lacedaemonians?
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And with what results? We have been plunged into war
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; we have seen many of our fellow-countrymen suffer, some of them dying in battle, some made prisoners of war, and others reduced to the last extremities of want; we have seen the democracy twice overthrown,
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the walls which defended our country torn down
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; and, worst of all, we have seen the whole city in peril of being enslaved,
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and our enemy encamped on the Acropolis.
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But I perceive, even though my feelings carry me away, that the water in the clock
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is giving out, while I myself have fallen into thoughts and recriminations which would exhaust the day. Therefore, I pass over the multitude of calamities which these men have brought upon us; I thrust aside the throng of offenses which we might charge to their infamy, and content myself with just one word before I close.
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I observe that when others who are placed in jeopardy here come to the end of their defense, they supplicate, they implore, they bring their children and their friends before the jury.
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I, however, consider that such expedients are unbecoming to one of my age; and, apart from this feeling, I should be ashamed to owe my life to any other plea than to the words which you have just heard. For I know that I have spoken with so just and clear a conscience both towards the city and our ancestors, and above all towards the gods, that if it be true that the gods concern themselves at all with human affairs I am sure that they are not indifferent to my present situation.
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Wherefore, I have no fear of what may come to me at your hands; nay, I am of good courage and have every confidence that when I close my life it will be when it is best for me; for I take it as a good sign that all my past life up to this day has been such as is the due of righteous and god-fearing men.
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Being assured, therefore, that I am of this mind, and that I believe that whatever you decide will be for my good and to my advantage, let each one cast his vote as he pleases and is inclined.
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