by Demosthenes
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: [49] “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.” [50] If the barbarians heard these words and understood their import, do you not think that they would unanimously appoint you their protectors? 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. [51]
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. [52] Please take and read the actual oracles.
“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 thanks 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, and remember your gifts.”
unknown
[53] “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 Ship 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.” unknown [54]
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. [55] 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? [56]
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; 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. [57] 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. [58]
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. [59] 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. [60] 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. [61] 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. [62]
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; [63] 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. [64]
Take another instance. We all know that Philostratus of Colonus was one of the accusers when Chabrias 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. [65] 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. [66] 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? [67] 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. [68] 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. [69] 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. [70]
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. [71]
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 Samos 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.
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. [72] 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. [73] 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. [74] 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. [75] 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. [76] 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. [77]
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. [78]
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. It was the brother, Thrasylochus, who submitted his name and made the challenge; but the real author of all these proceedings was Meidias. [79] 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 wo
rds they proceeded to deeds, and they were going to drop the lawsuits, claiming them as their own, to oblige my guardians. [80] 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. [81] 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. [82] 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.”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.]” [83]