Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
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Witnesses
[We, Dionysius of
Aphidna and Antiphilus of Paeania, when our kinsman Nicodemus had met with a violent death at the hands of Aristarchus, the son of Moschus, prosecuted Aristarchus for murder. Learning this, Meidias, who is now being brought to trial by Demosthenes, for whom we appear, offered us small sums of money to let Aristarchus go unharmed, and to substitute the name of Demosthenes in the indictment for murder.]
Now let me have the law concerning bribery.
21.108While the clerk is finding the statute, men of
Law
If any Athenian accepts a bribe from another, or himself offers it to another, or corrupts anyone by promises, to the detriment of the people in general, or of any individual citizen, by any means or device whatsoever, he shall be disfranchised together with his children, and his property shall be confiscated.
21.114This man, then, is so impious, so abandoned, so ready to say or do anything, without stopping for a moment to ask whether it is true or false, whether it touches an enemy or a friend, or any such question, that after accusing me of murder and bringing that grave charge against me, he suffered me to conduct initiatory rites and sacrifices for the Council, and to inaugurate the victims on behalf of you and all the State; 21.115he suffered me as head of the Sacred Embassy to lead it in the name of the city to the Nemean shrine of Zeus; he raised no objection when I was chosen with two colleagues to inaugurate the sacrifice to the Dread Goddesses. note Would he have allowed all this, if he had had one jot or tittle of proof for the charges that he was trumping up against me? I cannot believe it. So then this is conclusive proof that he was seeking in mere wanton spite to drive me from my native land.
21.116Then, when for all his desperate shifts he could bring none of these charges home to me, he turned informer against Aristarchus, aiming evidently at me. To pass over other incidents, when the Council was in session and was investigating the murder, Meidias came in and cried, “Don't you know the facts of the case, Councillors? Are you wasting time and groping blindly for the murderer, when you have him already in your hands?”-meaning Aristarchus. “Won't you put him to death? Won't you go to his house and arrest him?”
Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
<<Dem. 21.101 | Dem. 21.111 (Greek) | >>Dem. 21.120 |