| Demades, On the Twelve Years (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Demad.]. | ||
| <<Demad. 1.1 | Demad. 1.5 (Greek) | >>Demad. 1.16 |
1.1The laws have given you the right, Athenians, to acquit or punish men on trial. A doctor cannot treat his patients skilfully if he has not discerned the cause of the disease, nor can a member of a jury give a fair vote unless he has followed intelligently the rights and wrongs of the case.
1.2Since I have myself become exposed to the full hatred of the orators, I am asking not only for divine assistance but for your help also. For they are casting aspersions on my personal history, thinking to undermine your confidence in my speech. I am of no consequence whether alive or dead; for what do the Athenians care if Demades is lost to them, too? No soldier will shed tears over my death—(How could he, when war brings him advancement and peace destroys his livelihood?); but it will be lamented by the farmer, the sailor, and everyone who has enjoyed the peaceful life with which I fortified Attica , encircling its boundaries, not with stone, but with the safety of the city.
1.3In many cases, gentlemen of the jury, when men are serving as judges they are seriously misled. For, just as a complaint of the eyes, by confusing the vision, prevents a man from seeing what lies before him, so an unjust speech, insinuating itself into the minds of the jury, prevents them in their anger from perceiving the truth. You should therefore exercise more care in dealing with the accused than with the plaintiffs. For the latter, by virtue of speaking first, have the jury in the mood which suits them, while the former are compelled to plead their cause to judges already prejudiced by anger.
1.4Now, if you hold me liable for the charges, condemn me out of hand; I ask no pardon. But if, on considerations of justice, law, and expediency, I prove to be innocent of these charges, do not leave me to the savagery of my prosecutors. If my death will contribute in the least, as these men say, to the common safety, I am ready to die. For it is a noble thing to win public esteem by the loss of one's own life, so long as it is given in answer to the country's need and not the argument of these accusers.
1.5I entreat you by the gods, Athenians, give me free scope to explain to you my claims to fair treatment. I have, I believe, the power even to be of assistance to others, but on this occasion fear restrains my speech. Apart from that I am not afraid that the facts will convict me; all I fear is my opponents' slander which, instead of bringing wrongdoers to justice, attaches to any with a reputation as an orator or statesman.
1.6The hopes I place in you are justified; for the sympathy of his hearers, when it is ranged on the side of justice, is no small factor in securing the acquittal of the accused. If I gain this I shall rebut all the calumnies; without it neither speech nor laws, nor the light of facts, can save a man unjustly brought to trial. I need not remind you that numerous prosecutors on many occasions in the past have, on the strength of their pleas, been thought to be urging a just case, but after a comparison with the defence they have been found to be themselves speaking falsely and I am convinced that my accusers now will have the same experience, if you consent to grant me a favorable hearing.
Greece were promoting Alexander to the rank of leader, and by remoulding him in their decrees they raised the aspirations of a young and ambitious man to an excessive pitch. We and the Spartans remained, with neither revenues nor armaments nor regiments of infantry to be the bulwark of our safety, yet fortified by a great desire, though our power was small and humble.
1.7As they attempted to question the rest of my administration, I wish to make a few points in connexion with it and then to pass on to the remainder of my defence in order to prove their dishonesty to you. I am the son of Demeas, Athenians, as the elder ones among you know, and the early part of my life I lived as best I could, neither doing harm to the community nor troubling any individual in the city. I merely persisted in trying, by my own efforts, to better my humble position. 1.8Penury may involve inconvenience and hardship but it carries with it no discredit, since poverty is frequently, I imagine, a mark not of weakness of character but of sheer misfortune. When I entered public life I did not concentrate on lawsuits or the perquisites to be derived from writing speeches but on speaking freely from the platform, a practice which makes the lives of orators dangerous but holds out the clearest opportunities of success, if men are careful note; for, though they succumb to the speaker, their country's safety must not also fall a victim. 1.9I have, to bear me out, the burial of a thousand Athenians note performed by the hands of our adversaries, hands which I won over from enmity to friendship towards the dead. Then, on coming to the fore in public life, I proposed the peace. I admit it. I proposed honors to Philip. I do not deny it. By making these proposals I gained for you two thousand captives free of ransom, a thousand Athenian dead, for whom no herald had to ask, and Oropus without an embassy. 1.10The hand that wrote them was constrained, not by Macedonian gifts, as my accusers falsely allege, but by the need of the moment, the interest of my country, and the generosity of the king. For he entered the war as our foe but emerged from the struggle as a friend, awarding to the vanquished the prize of the victors. 1.11Again, there came a second crisis for the city; for I deliberately ignore the intervening dangers. All other inhabitants of
| Demades, On the Twelve Years (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Demad.]. | ||
| <<Demad. 1.1 | Demad. 1.5 (Greek) | >>Demad. 1.16 |
