Greek Texts & Translations

25.1Gentlemen of the jury, as I sat here for a long time and listened with you to the speech of Lycurgus for the prosecution, I thought it in general an excellent speech; but when I observed him unduly exerting himself, I was surprised that he should not realize that the strength of our case does not really depend on the arguments that he has used or that I am going to use, but on the disposition of each juryman either to be indignant at wickedness or to condone it. 25.2For myself, I admit it was our duty to undertake the prosecution and to deliver full speeches in accordance with custom and for your information; but I feel that the case has been already decided by each one of you in his inmost conscience, and that now, if the majority of you are men disposed to admire and protect rascals, all our declamation will be wasted, but if you are disposed to hate them, then this man, please God! shall pay the penalty.

25.3Though much has been said, and all of it well said, I shall not scruple to put my own views before you, because the present suit seems to me quite different from all others. Just consider. To all our courts the juries come to learn from plaintiff and defendant the facts upon which they are to give their votes, and each litigant comes to prove that the legal right is strong on his side. 25.4But how stands it with the present trial? You who are to give the verdict have come here knowing better than we, the accusers, that this man, since he is a state-debtor and registered as such in the Acropolis, has no right to speak at all; so that each of you is in the position of an accuser, knowing the facts and not needing to be told them. 25.5But the defendant is here with nothing whatever to support his acquittal, with no sound plea based on the facts, with no past record of a decent life, with not a single point in his favour. He imagines that he may be saved by what would have frightened anyone else, though innocent; for he bases the hope of his acquittal on the enormity of his wickedness.

25.6This being so, it seems to me that one would not be wrong in saying that, while Aristogeiton is on his trial, it is your character that is being tested, your reputation that is at stake. For if you make it quite clear that you are angry at such patent and gross offences and are determined to punish them, then it will be seen that you have come here to play your true part as judges and guardians of the law. 25.7But if some other motive prevails, some motive which none would care to confess, but which your votes will betray, then I am afraid that to some you will appear to be playing the part of trainers of any citizen who has a taste for wickedness. For every bad man is in himself weak; he only becomes strong by your countenance and support. Whoever wins that support finds in it his advantage and his strength; to you who give that support, it is a source of shame.

25.8But before I speak of the private affairs of the defendant, men of Athens, I should like you seriously but briefly to calculate how much shame and discredit is brought upon our city by these monsters, of whom the defendant is at once the midmost, the first, and the last. 25.9To mention only one matter; they mount the platform in the Assembly, where you look to your orators to explain their policy, not to flaunt their wickedness; they come equipped with a hardened front, a raucous voice, false charges, intimidation, shamelessness, and all such gifts as these, than which one could name no qualities more hostile to the spirit of debate nor, I think—so Heaven help me!—more discreditable. By these vile tricks they gain supremacy over all that is respectable in the State, over the laws, the committees, the course of public business, and the maintenance of order. 25.10Now if that is what you want, if their practice accords with your ideas, we must just let them go their own way; but if you think that even at the eleventh hour you ought to put all this right, and reform what has been allowed to go too far, and has been disgracefully misdirected by these men, you must today avert your eyes from all such practices and give a righteous verdict. 25.11You must magnify the Goddess of Order who loves what is right and preserves every city and every land; and before you cast your votes, each juryman must reflect that he is being watched by hallowed and inexorable Justice, who, as Orpheus, that prophet of our most sacred mysteries, tells us, sits beside the throne of Zeus and oversees all the works of men. Each must keep watch and ward lest he shame that goddess, from whom everyone that is chosen by lot derives his name of juror, because he has this day received a sacred trust from the laws, from the constitution, from the fatherland,—the duty of guarding all that is fair and right and beneficial in our city. 25.12For if you do not cherish that temper, if you come here and take seats with your usual easy good nature, I am afraid that the case may be reversed, and that we who seem to accuse Aristogeiton may be found to be accusing you; for the more convincingly we prove his guilt without arousing your interest, the greater will be your shame. But enough of that subject!

25.13Men of Athens, I shall certainly tell you the truth with the utmost frankness. When I saw you in the Assembly indicating and proposing me as the accuser of Aristogeiton, I was troubled, and I call Heaven to witness that I did not relish the task. For I was not unaware that he who plays such a part in your courts suffers for it in the end, not perhaps so as to feel it at once, but if he undertakes many such tasks and perseveres in them, his character will soon be recognized. I thought it, however, my duty to accede to your wishes.