| Lycurgus, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Lycurg.]. | ||
| <<Lycurg. 1.26 | Lycurg. 1.36 (Greek) | >>Lycurg. 1.47 |
1.31Apart from this, Leocrates will presently proclaim that he is a simple citizen and is falling a prey to the cunning of an orator and false informer. But I am sure you all know well the characteristic behavior of those unscrupulous men who try to lay false information; for when they choose their part they look for vantage-points on which to quibble against those on trial, whereas the man whose aims in going to law are honest, who brings proofs to bear against those who come under the herald's curse, note does just the opposite, as I myself am doing.
1.32Look at the present case yourselves in this way. Which people could not have been misled by cunning or a deceptive argument? The male and female slaves. Naturally, when tortured, they would have told the whole truth about all the offences. But it was just these persons whom Leocrates refused to hand over, though they were his and no one else's.
1.33On the other hand which people could he probably impose upon by arguments, appealing to their softer side by his tears and so winning their sympathy? The jury. Leocrates, the betrayer of his country, has come into court with only one fear, namely that the witnesses who by certain proofs expose the criminal will be produced from the same household as the man whom they expose. What was the use of pretexts, pleas, excuses? Justice is plain, the truth easy and the proof brief.
1.34If he admits that the articles of the indictment are true and right, why does he not suffer punishment as the laws require? But if he claims that they are false, why has he not handed over his male and female slaves? When a man is up for treason he should submit his slaves for torture, without evading a single one of the most searching tests.
1.35Leocrates did nothing of the sort. Though he has condemned himself as a traitor to his country, a traitor to his gods and to the laws, he will ask you when you vote to contradict his own admissions and his own evidence. How can it be right, when a man has refused a fair offer and in many other ways also has robbed himself of the means of defence, for you to let him mislead your judgement on crimes to which he has confessed?
Piraeus armed, to consult for the protection of that harbor, and that it should hold itself ready to do whatever seemed to be in the people's interest. And yet, if the men who had been exempted from military service so that they might deliberate upon the city's affairs were then playing the part of soldiers, do you think that the alarms which had taken hold upon the city were any trivial or ordinary fears?
1.38Yet it was then that this man Leocrates made off himself—a runaway from the city; it was then that he conveyed to safety his available property and sent back for the sacred images of his family. To such a pitch did he carry his treason that, so far as his decision went, the temples were abandoned, the posts on the wall unmanned and the town and country left deserted.
1.39And yet in those days, gentlemen, who would not have pitied the city, even though he were not a citizen but only an alien who had lived among us in previous years? Surely there was no one whose hatred of the people or of Athens was so intense that he could have endured to see himself remain outside the army. When the defeat and consequent disaster had been reported to the people and the city was tense with alarm at the news, the people's hope of safety had come to rest with the men of over fifty.
1.40Free women could be seen crouching at the doors in terror inquiring for the safety of their husbands, fathers or brothers, offering a spectacle degrading to themselves and to the city. The men who had outlived their stength and were advanced in life, exempt by law from service in the field, could be seen throughout the city, now on the threshold of the grave, wretchedly scurrying with their cloaks pinned double round them.
1.41Many sufferings were being visited upon the city; every citizen had felt misfortune at its worst; but the sight which would most surely have stirred the onlooker and moved him to tears over the sorrows of Athens was to see the people vote that slaves should be released, that aliens should become Athenians and the disfranchised regain their rights note: the nation that once proudly claimed to be indigenous and free. The city had suffered a change indeed.
1.42She who used once to champion the freedom of her fellow Greeks was now content if she could safely meet the dangers that her own defence entailed. In the past she had ruled a wide extent of foreign land; now she was disputing with Macedon for her own. The people whom Lacedaemonians and Peloponnesians, whom the Greeks of Asia used once to summon to their help, note were now entreating men of Andros , Ceos , Troezen and Epidaurus to send them aid.
1.36So much for the challenge and the crime. I think you have been shown well enough, gentlemen, that that part is beyond dispute. I want now to remind you what emergencies, what great dangers the city was facing when Leocrates turned traitor to it. Please take the decree of Hyperides, clerk, and read it.
Decree
1.37You hear the decree, gentlemen. It provided that the Council of Five Hundred should go down to the
| Lycurgus, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Lycurg.]. | ||
| <<Lycurg. 1.26 | Lycurg. 1.36 (Greek) | >>Lycurg. 1.47 |
