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    Delphi Complete Works of Lysias (Illustrated)
    Delphi Complete Works of Lysias (Illustrated)
    Delphi Complete Works of Lysias (Illustrated)
    Ebook1,793 pages18 hours

    Delphi Complete Works of Lysias (Illustrated)

    By Lysias of Athens

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    About this ebook

    One of the ten Attic orators included in the Alexandrian Canon, Lysias was a prominent figure of Athens in the fifth century BC. A loyal supporter of democracy, he took the side of the democrats at Athens against the Thirty Tyrants, supplying shields and money. Following a political speech in accusation of the tyrant Eratosthenes, he became a busy professional speech writer for the law courts of Athens. He was highly regarded by Plato and Plutarch. Lysias’ extant 34 speeches are fluent, simple and graceful in style, yet notable for their vivid descriptions. They reveal Lysias as a passionate partisan, who was also a gentle and humorous man. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, with both English translations and the original Greek texts. This eBook presents Lysias’ complete works, with illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)


    * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Lysias’ life and works
    * Features the complete extant works of Lysias, in both English translation and the original Greek
    * Concise introductions to the orator
    * Provides multiple translations of Lysias’ speeches
    * Includes W. R. M. Lamb’s translation, previously appearing in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Lysias, with the original footnotes
    * Also includes the anonymous 1897 translation, published by Hinds, Noble and Eldredge, New York
    * Excellent formatting of the texts
    * Easily locate the speeches you want to read with individual contents tables
    * Provides a special dual English and Greek text, allowing readers to compare the sections paragraph by paragraph — ideal for students
    * Features two bonus biographies, including Plutarch’s ‘Life’— discover Lysias’ ancient world


    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to explore our range of Ancient Classics titles or buy the entire series as a Super Set


    CONTENTS:


    The Translations
    Brief Introduction to Lysias by Richard Claverhouse Jebb
    The Speeches
    The Orations of Lysias


    The Greek Text
    Contents of the Greek Text


    The Dual Text
    Dual Greek and English Text


    The Biographies
    Life of Lysias by Plutarch
    General Introduction to Lysias by W. R. M. Lamb


    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDelphi Publishing Ltd
    Release dateApr 11, 2022
    ISBN9781801700580
    Delphi Complete Works of Lysias (Illustrated)

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      Book preview

      Delphi Complete Works of Lysias (Illustrated) - Lysias of Athens

      cover.jpg

      The Complete Works of

      LYSIAS

      (c. 445-c. 380 BC)

      img1.jpg

      Contents

      The Translations

      Brief Introduction to Lysias by Richard Claverhouse Jebb

      The Speeches

      The Orations of Lysias

      The Greek Text

      Contents of the Greek Text

      The Dual Text

      Dual Greek and English Text

      The Biographies

      Life of Lysias by Plutarch

      General Introduction to Lysias by W. R. M. Lamb

      The Delphi Classics Catalogue

      img2.png

      © Delphi Classics 2022

      Version 1

      img3.jpg

      Browse Ancient Classics

      img4.jpgimg5.jpgimg6.jpgimg7.jpgimg8.jpgimg9.jpgimg10.jpg

      The Complete Works of

      LYSIAS

      img11.png

      By Delphi Classics, 2022

      COPYRIGHT

      Complete Works of Lysias

      img12.jpg

      First published in the United Kingdom in 2022 by Delphi Classics.

      © Delphi Classics, 2022.

      All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

      ISBN: 978 1 80170 058 0

      Delphi Classics

      is an imprint of

      Delphi Publishing Ltd

      Hastings, East Sussex

      United Kingdom

      Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com

      img13.png

      www.delphiclassics.com

      The Translations

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      ‘The Acropolis of Athens’ by Leo von Klenze, 1846 — Lysias was born in Athens in 459-458 BC.

      Brief Introduction to Lysias by Richard Claverhouse Jebb

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      From ‘1911 Encyclopædia Britannica’, Volume 17

      LYSIAS, Attic orator, was born, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the author of the life ascribed to Plutarch, in 459 B.C. This date was evidently obtained by reckoning back from the foundation of Thurii (444 B.C.), since there was a tradition that Lysias had gone thither at the age of fifteen. Modern critics would place his birth later, — between 444 and 436 B.C., — because, in Plato’s Republic, of which the scene is laid about 430 B.C., Cephalus, the father of Lysias, is among the dramatis personae, and the emigration of Lysias to Thurii was said to have followed his father’s death. The latter statement, however, rests only on the Plutarchic life; nor can Plato’s dialogue be safely urged as a minutely accurate authority. The higher date assigned by the ancient writers agrees better with the tradition that Lysias reached, or passed, the age of eighty. Cephalus, his father, was a native of Syracuse, and on the invitation of Pericles had settled at Athens. The opening scene of Plato’s Republic is laid at the house of his eldest son, Polemarchus, in Peiraeus. The tone of the picture warrants the inference that the Sicilian family were well known to Plato, and that their houses must often have been hospitable to such gatherings.

      At Thurii, the colony newly planted on the Tarentine Gulf (see Pericles), the boy may have seen Herodotus, now a man in middle life, and a friendship may have grown up between them. There, too, Lysias is said to have commenced his studies in rhetoric — doubtless under a master of the Sicilian school — possibly, as tradition said, under Tisias, the pupil of Corax, whose name is associated with the first attempt to formulate rhetoric as an art. In 413 B.C. the Athenian armament in Sicily was annihilated. The desire to link famous names is illustrated by the ancient ascription to Lysias of a rhetorical exercise purporting to be a speech in which the captive general Nicias appealed for mercy to the Sicilians. The terrible blow to Athens quickened the energies of an anti-Athenian faction at Thurii. Lysias and his elder brother Polemarchus, with three hundred other persons, were accused of Atticizing. They were driven from Thurii and settled at Athens (412 B.C.).

      Lysias and Polemarchus were rich men, having inherited property from their father; and Lysias claims that, though merely resident aliens, they discharged public services with a liberality which shamed many of those who enjoyed the franchise (In Eratosth. 20). The fact that they owned house property shows that they were classed as ἰσοτελεῖς, i.e. foreigners who paid only the same tax as citizens, being exempt from the special tax (μετοίκιον) on resident aliens. Polemarchus occupied a house in Athens itself, Lysias another in the Peiraeus, near which was their shield manufactory, employing a hundred and twenty skilled slaves. In 404 the Thirty Tyrants were established at Athens under the protection of a Spartan garrison. One of their earliest measures was an attack upon the resident aliens, who were represented as disaffected to the new government. Lysias and Polemarchus were on a list of ten singled out to be the first victims. Polemarchus was arrested, and compelled to drink hemlock. Lysias had a narrow escape, with the help of a large bribe. He slipped by a back-door out of the house in which he was a prisoner, and took boat to Megara. It appears that he had rendered valuable services to the exiles during the reign of the tyrants, and in 403 Thrasybulus proposed that these services should be recognized by the bestowal of the citizenship. The Boulē, however, had not yet been reconstituted, and hence the measure could not be introduced to the ecclesia by the requisite preliminary resolution (προβούλευμα). On this ground it was successfully opposed.

      During his later years Lysias — now probably a comparatively poor man owing to the rapacity of the tyrants and his own generosity to the Athenian exiles — appears as a hardworking member of a new profession — that of writing speeches to be delivered in the law-courts. The thirty-four extant are but a small fraction. From 403 to about 380 B.C. his industry must have been incessant. The notices of his personal life in these years are scanty. In 403 he came forward as the accuser of Eratosthenes, one of the Thirty Tyrants. This was his only direct contact with Athenian politics. The story that he wrote a defence for Socrates, which the latter declined to use, probably arose from a confusion. Several years after the death of Socrates the sophist Polycrates composed a declamation against him, to which Lysias replied. A more authentic tradition represents Lysias as having spoken his own Olympiacus at the Olympic festival of 388 B.C., to which Dionysius I of Syracuse had sent a magnificent embassy. Tents embroidered with gold were pitched within the sacred enclosure; and the wealth of Dionysius was vividly shown by the number of chariots which he had entered. Lysias lifted up his voice to denounce Dionysius as, next to Artaxerxes, the worst enemy of Hellas, and to impress upon the assembled Greeks that one of their foremost duties was to deliver Sicily from a hateful oppression. The latest work of Lysias which we can date (a fragment of a speech For Pherenicus) belongs to 381 or 380 B.C. He probably died in or soon after 380 B.C.

      Lysias was a man of kindly and genial nature, warm in friendship, loyal to country, with a keen perception of character. and a fine though strictly controlled sense of humour. The literary tact which is so remarkable in the extant speeches is that of a singularly flexible intelligence, always obedient to an instinct of gracefulness. He owes his distinctive place to the power of concealing his art. It was obviously desirable that a speech written for delivery by a client should be suitable to his age, station and circumstances. Lysias was the first to make this adaptation really artistic. His skill can be best appreciated if we turn from the easy flow of his graceful language to the majestic emphasis of Antiphon, or to the self-revealing art of Isaeus. Translated into terms of ancient criticism, he became the model of the plain style (ἰοχνὸς χαρακτήρ, ἰοχνὴ, λιτὴ, ἀφελὴς λέξις: genus tenue or subtile). Greek and then Roman critics distinguished three styles of rhetorical composition — the grand (or elaborate), the plain and the middle, the plain being nearest to the language of daily life. Greek rhetoric began in the grand style; then Lysias set an exquisite pattern of the plain; and Demosthenes might be considered as having effected an almost ideal compromise.

      The vocabulary of Lysias is pure and simple. Most of the rhetorical figures are sparingly used — except such as consist in the parallelism or opposition of clauses. The taste of the day — not yet emancipated from the influence of the Sicilian rhetoric — probably demanded a large use of antithesis. Lysias excels in vivid description; he has also a happy knack of marking the speaker’s character by light touches. The structure of his sentences varies a good deal according to the dignity of the subject. He has equal command over the periodic style (κατεστραμμένη λέξις) and the non-periodic or continuous (εἰρομένη, διαλελυμένη). His disposition of his subject-matter is always simple. The speech has usually four parts — introduction (προοίμιον), narrative of facts (διήγησις), proofs (πίστεις), which may be either external, as from witnesses, or internal, derived from argument on the facts, and, lastly, conclusion (ἐπίλογος). It is in the introduction and the narrative that Lysias is seen at his best. In his greatest extant speech — that Against Eratosthenes — and also in the fragmentary Olympiacus, he has pathos and fire; but these were not characteristic qualities of his work. In Cicero’s judgment (De Orat. iii. 7, 28) Demosthenes was peculiarly distinguished by force (vis), Aeschines by resonance (sonitus), Hypereides by acuteness (acumen), Isocrates by sweetness (suavitas); the distinction which he assigns to Lysias is subtilitas, an Attic refinement — which, as he elsewhere says (Brutus, 16, 64) is often joined to an admirable vigour (lacerti). Nor was it oratory alone to which Lysias rendered service; his work had an important effect on all subsequent Greek prose, by showing how perfect elegance could be joined to plainness. Here, in his artistic use of familiar idiom, he might fairly be called the Euripides of Attic prose. And his style has an additional charm for modern readers, because it is employed in describing scenes from the everyday life of Athens.

      Thirty-four speeches (three fragmentary) have come down under the name of Lysias; one hundred and twenty-seven more, now lost, are known from smaller fragments or from titles. In the Augustan age four hundred and twenty-five works bore his name, of which more than two hundred were allowed as genuine by the critics. Our thirty-four works may be classified as follows: —

      A. Epideictic. — 1. Olympiacus, xxxiii. 388 B.C.; 2. Epitaphius, ii. (purporting to have been spoken during the Corinthian War; certainly spurious), perhaps composed about 380–340 B.C. (soon after 387, Blass).

      B. Deliberative. — Plea for the Constitution, xxxiv., 403 B.C.

      C. Forensic, in Public Causes. — I. Relating to Offences directly against the State (γραφαὶ δημοσίων ἀδικημάτων); such as treason, malversation in office, embezzlement of public moneys. 1. For Polystratus, xx., 407 B.C.; 2. Defence on a Charge of Taking Bribes, xxi., 402 B.C.; 3. Against Ergocles, xxviii., 389 B.C.; 4. Against Epicrates, xxvii., 389 B.C.; 5. Against Nicomachus, xxx., 399 B.C.; 6. Against the Corndealers, xxii., 386 B.C. (?) II. Cause relating to Unconstitutional Procedure (γραφὴ αρανόμων). On the Property of the Brother of Nicias, xviii., 395 B.C. III. Causes relating to Claims for Money withheld from the State (ἀπογραφαί). 1. For the Soldier, ix. (probably not by Lysias, but by an imitator, writing for a real cause), 394 B.C. (?); 2. On the Property of Aristophanes, xix., 387 B.C.; 3. Against Philocrates, xxix., 389 B.C. IV. Causes relating to a Scrutiny (δοκιμασία); especially the Scrutiny, by the Senate, of Officials Designate. 1. Against Evandrus, xxvi., 382 B.C.; 2. For Mantitheus, xvi., 392 B.C.; 3. Against Philon, xxxi., between 404 and 395 B.C.; 4. Defence on a Charge of Seeking to Abolish the Democracy, xxv., 401 B.C.; 5. For the Invalid, xxiv., 402 B.C. (?) V. Causes relating to Military Offences (γραφαὶ λιποταξίου, ἀστρατείας). 1. Against Alcibiades, I. and II. (xiv., xv.), 395 B.C. VI. Causes relating to Murder or Intent to Murder (γραφαὶ φόνου, τραύματος ἐκ προνοίας). 1. Against Eratosthenes, xii., 403 B.C.; 2. Against Agoratus, xiii., 399 B.C.; 3. On the Murder of Eratosthenes, i. (date uncertain); 4. Against Simon, iii., 393 B.C.; 5. On Wounding with Intent, iv. (date uncertain). VII. Causes relating to Impiety (γραφαὶ ἀσεβείας). 1. Against Andocides, vi. (certainly spurious, but perhaps contemporary); 2. For Callias, v. (date uncertain); 3. On the Sacred Olive, vii., not before 395 B.C.

      D. Forensic, in Private Causes.}} — I. Action for Libel (δίκη κακηγορίας). Against Theomnestus, x., 384–383 B.C. (the so-called second speech, xi., is merely an epitome of the first). II. Action by a Ward against a Guardian (δίκη ἐπιτροπῆς). Against Diogeiton, xxxii., 400 B.C. III. Trial of a Claim to Property (διαδικασία). On the property of Eraton, xvii., 397 B.C. IV. Answer to a Special Plea (πρὸς παραγραφήν). Against Pancleon, xxiii. (date uncertain).

      E. Miscellaneous. — 1. To his Companions, a Complaint of Slanders, viii. (certainly spurious); 2. The ἐρωτικός in Plato’s Phaedrus, p E–234. This has generally been regarded as Plato’s own work; but the certainty of this conclusion will be doubted by those who observe (1) the elaborate preparations made in the dialogue for a recital of the ἐρωτικός which shall be verbally exact, and (2) the closeness of the criticism made upon it. If the satirist were merely analysing his own composition, such criticism would have little point. Lysias is the earliest writer who is known to have composed ἐρωτικόί; it is as representing both rhetoric and a false ἔρως that he is the object of attack in the Phaedrus.

      F. Fragments. — Three hundred and fifty-five of these are collected by Sauppe, Oratores Attici, ii. 170–216. Two hundred and fifty-two of them represent one hundred and twenty-seven speeches of known title; and of six the fragments are comparatively large. Of these, the fragmentary speech For Pherenicus belongs to 381 or 380 B.C., and is thus the latest known work of Lysias.

      In literary and historical interest, the first place among the extant speeches of Lysias belongs to that Against Eratosthenes (403 B.C.), one of the Thirty Tyrants, whom Lysias arraigns as the murderer of his brother Polemarchus. The speech is an eloquent and vivid picture of the reign of terror which the Thirty established at Athens; the concluding appeal, to both parties among the citizens, is specially powerful. Next in importance is the speech Against Agoratus (399 B.C.), one of our chief authorities for the internal history of Athens during the months which immediately followed the defeat at Aegospotami. The Olympiacus (388 B.C.) is a brilliant fragment, expressing the spirit of the festival at Olympia, and exhorting Greeks to unite against their common foes. The Plea for the Constitution (403 B.C.) is interesting for the manner in which it argues that the wellbeing of Athens — now stripped of empire — is bound up with the maintenance of democratic principles. The speech For Mantitheus (392 B.C.) is a graceful and animated portrait of a young Athenian ἱππεύς, making a spirited defence of his honour against the charge of disloyalty. The defence For the Invalid is a humorous character-sketch. The speech Against Pancleon illustrates the intimate relations between Athens and Plataea, while it gives us some picturesque glimpses of Athenian town life. The defence of the person who had been charged with destroying a moria, or sacred olive, places us amidst the country life of Attica. And the speech Against Theomnestus deserves attention for its curious evidence of the way in which the ordinary vocabulary of Athens had changed between 600 and 400 B.C.

      All MSS. of Lysias yet collated have been derived, as H. Sauppe first showed, from the Codex Palatinus X. (Heidelberg). The next most valuable MS. is the Laurentianus C (15th century), which I. Bekker chiefly followed. Speaking generally, we may say that these two MSS. are the only two which carry much weight where the text is seriously corrupt. In Oratt. i.-ix. Bekker occasionally consulted eleven other MSS., most of which contain only the above nine speeches: viz., Marciani F, G, I, K (Venice); Laurentiani D, E (Florence); Vaticani M, N; Parisini U, V; Urbinas O.

      Bibliography. — Editio princeps, Aldus (Venice, 1513); by I. Bekker (1823) and W. S. Dobson (1828) in Oratores Attici; C. Scheibe (1852) and T. Thalheim (1901, Teubner series, with bibliography); C. G. Cobet (4th ed., by J. J. Hartman, 1905); with variorum notes, by J. J. Reiske (1772). Editions of select speeches by J. H. Bremi (1845); R. Rauchenstein (1848, revised by C. Fuhr, 1880–1881); H. Frohberger (1866–1871); H. van Herwerden (1863); A. Weidner (1888); E. S. Shuckburgh (1882); A. Westermann and W. Binder (1887–1890); G. P. Bristol (1892), M. H. Morgan (1895), C. D. Adams (1905), all three published in America. There is a special lexicon to Lysias by D. H. Holmes (Bonn, 1895). See also Jebb’s Attic Orators (1893) and Selections from the Attic Orators (2nd ed., 1888) and F. Blass, Die Attische Beredsamkeit (2nd ed., 1887–1898); W. L. Devries, Ethopoiia. A rhetorical study of the types of character in the orations of Lysias (Baltimore, 1892).  (R. C. J.; X.) 

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      Dionysius I from Guillaume Rouillé’s ‘Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum’, 1553

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      Thrasybulus receiving an olive crown for his successful campaign against the Thirty Tyrants. From Andrea Alciato’s ‘Emblemata’, 1531

      The Speeches

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      Translated by W. R. M. Lamb, Loeb Classical Library, 1930

      CONTENTS

      On the Murder of Eratosthenes

      ENDNOTES.

      Funeral Oration

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Simon: Defense

      ENDNOTES.

      On A Wound By Premeditation

      ENDNOTES.

      For Callias

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Andocides

      ENDNOTES.

      Defense in the Matter of the Olive Stump

      ENDNOTES.

      Accusation of Calumny

      For The Soldier

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Theomnestus 1

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Theomnestus 2

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Eratosthenes

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Agoratus

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Alcibiades 1

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Alcibiades 2

      ENDNOTES.

      In Defense of Mantitheus

      ENDNOTES.

      On The Property Of Eraton

      ENDNOTES.

      On The Property Of The Brother Of Nicias: Peroration

      ENDNOTES.

      On the Property of Aristophanes

      ENDNOTES.

      For Polystratus

      ENDNOTES.

      Defence Against A Charge Of Taking Bribes

      ENDNOTES.

      Against The Corn-Dealers

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Pancleon

      ENDNOTES.

      On The Refusal Of A Pension

      ENDNOTES.

      Defense Against a Charge of Subverting the Democracy

      ENDNOTES.

      On the Scrutiny of Evandros

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Epicrates and his Fellow-envoys

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Ergocles

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Philocrates

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Nicomachus

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Philon

      ENDNOTES.

      Against Diogeiton

      ENDNOTES.

      Olympic Oration

      ENDNOTES.

      Against The Subversion of the Ancestral Constitution

      ENDNOTES.

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      Bust of Lysias, Roman copy of a Greek original, Louvre Museum, c. 100 AD

      On the Murder of Eratosthenes

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      I SHOULD BE only too pleased, sirs, to have you so disposed towards me in judging this case as you would be to yourselves, if you found yourselves in my plight. For I am sure that, if you had the same feelings about others as about yourselves, not one of you but would be indignant at what has been done; you would all regard the penalties appointed for those who resort to such practices as too mild. [2] And these feelings would be found, not only among you, but in the whole of Greece: for in the case of this crime alone, under both democracy and oligarchy, the same requital is accorded to the weakest against the strongest, so that the lowest gets the same treatment as the highest.¹ Thus you see, sirs, how all men abominate this outrage. [3] Well, I conceive that, in regard to the severity of the penalty, you are all of the same mind, and that not one of you is so easygoing as to think it right that men who are guilty of such acts should obtain pardon, or to presume that slight penalties suffice for their deserts. [4] But I take it, sirs, that what I have to show is that Eratosthenes had an intrigue with my wife, and not only corrupted her but inflicted disgrace upon my children and an outrage on myself by entering my house; that this was the one and only enmity between him and me; that I have not acted thus for the sake of money, so as to raise myself from poverty to wealth; and that all I seek to gain is the requital accorded by our laws. [5] I shall therefore set forth to you the whole of my story from the beginning; I shall omit nothing, but will tell the truth. For I consider that my own sole deliverance rests on my telling you, if I am able, the whole of what has occurred. [6]

      When I, Athenians, decided to marry, and brought a wife into my house, for some time I was disposed neither to vex her nor to leave her too free to do just as she pleased; I kept a watch on her as far as possible, with such observation of her as was reasonable. But when a child was born to me, thence-forward I began to trust her, and placed all my affairs in her hands, presuming that we were now in perfect intimacy. [7] It is true that in the early days, Athenians, she was the most excellent of wives; she was a clever, frugal housekeeper, and kept everything in the nicest order. But as soon as I lost my mother, her death became the cause of all my troubles. [8] For it was in attending her funeral that my wife was seen by this man, who in time corrupted her. He looked out for the servant-girl who went to market, and so paid addresses to her mistress by which he wrought her ruin. [9] Now in the first place I must tell you, sirs （for I am obliged to give you these particulars）, my dwelling is on two floors, the upper being equal in space to the lower, with the women’s quarters above and the men’s below. When the child was born to us, its mother suckled it; and in order that, each time that it had to be washed, she might avoid the risk of descending by the stairs, I used to live above, and the women below. [10] By this time it had become such an habitual thing that my wife would often leave me and go down to sleep with the child, so as to be able to give it the breast and stop its crying. Things went on in this way for a long time, and I never suspected, but was simple-minded enough to suppose that my own was the chastest wife in the city. [11] Time went on, sirs; I came home unexpectedly from the country, and after dinner the child started crying in a peevish way, as the servant-girl was annoying it on purpose to make it so behave; for the man was in the house — [12] I learnt it all later. So I bade my wife go and give the child her breast, to stop its howling. At first she refused, as though delighted to see me home again after so long; but when I began to be angry and bade her go,— Yes, so that you,she said, may have a try here at the little maid. Once before, too, when you were drunk, you pulled her about. [13] At that I laughed, while she got up, went out of the room, and closed the door, feigning to make fun, and she took the key away with her. I, without giving a thought to the matter, or having any suspicion, went to sleep in all content after my return from the country. [14] Towards daytime she came and opened the door. I asked why the doors made a noise in the night; she told me that the child’s lamp had gone out, and she had lit it again at our neighbor’s. I was silent and believed it was so. But it struck me, sirs, that she had powdered her face,² though her brother had died not thirty days before; even so, however, I made no remark on the fact, but left the house in silence. [15] After this, sirs, an interval occurred in which I was left quite unaware of my own injuries; I was then accosted by a certain old female, who was secretly sent by a woman with whom that man was having an intrigue, as I heard later. This woman was angry with him and felt herself wronged, because he no longer visited her so regularly, and she was keeping a watch on him until she should discover what was the cause. [16] So the old creature accosted me where she was on the look-out, near my house, and said,— Euphiletus, do not think it is from any meddlesomeness that I have approached you; for the man who is working both your and your wife’s dishonor happens to be our enemy. If, therefore, you take the servant-girl who goes to market and waits on you, and torture her, you will learn all. It is, she said, Eratosthenes of Oe who is doing this; he has debauched not only your wife, but many others besides; he makes an art of it. [17] With these words, sirs, she took herself off; I was at once perturbed; all that had happened came into my mind, and I was filled with suspicion, — reflecting first how I was shut up in my chamber, and then remembering how on that night the inner and outer doors made a noise, which had never occurred before, and how it struck me that my wife had put on powder. All these things came into my mind, and I was filled with suspicion. [18] Returning home, I bade the servant-girl follow me to the market, and taking her to the house of an intimate friend, I told her I was fully informed of what was going on in my house: So it is open to you, I said, to choose as you please between two things, — either to be whipped and thrown into a mill, and to be irrevocably immersed in that sort of misery, or else to speak out the whole truth and, instead of suffering any harm, obtain my pardon for your transgressions. Tell no lies, but speak the whole truth. [19] The girl at first denied it, and bade me do what I pleased, for she knew nothing; but when I mentioned Eratosthenes to her, and said that he was the man who visited my wife, she was dismayed, supposing that I had exact knowledge of everything. At once she threw herself down at my knees, and having got my pledge that she should suffer no harm, [20] she accused him, first, of approaching her after the funeral, and then told how at last she became his messenger; how my wife in time was persuaded, and by what means she procured his entrances, and how at the Thesmophoria³, while I was in the country, she went off to the temple with his mother. And the girl gave an exact account of everything else that had occurred. [21] When her tale was all told, I said,— Well now, see that nobody in the world gets knowledge of this; otherwise, nothing in your arrangement with me will hold good. And I require that you show me their guilt in the very act; I want no words, but manifestation of the fact, if it really is so. She agreed to do this. [22] Then came an interval of four or five days ... as I shall bring strong evidence to show. But first I wish to relate what took place on the last day. I had an intimate friend named Sostratus. After sunset I met him coming from the country. As I knew that, arriving at that hour, he would find none of his circle at home, I invited him to dine with me; we came to my house, mounted to the upper room, and had dinner. [23] When he had made a good meal, he left me and departed; then I went to bed. Eratosthenes, sirs, entered, and the maid-servant roused me at once, and told me that he was in the house. Bidding her look after the door, I descended and went out in silence; I called on one friend and another, and found some of them at home, while others were out of town. [24] I took with me as many as I could among those who were there, and so came along. Then we got torches from the nearest shop, and went in; the door was open, as the girl had it in readiness. We pushed open the door of the bedroom, and the first of us to enter were in time to see him lying down by my wife; those who followed saw him standing naked on the bed. [25] I gave him a blow, sirs, which knocked him down, and pulling round his two hands behind his back, and tying them, I asked him why he had the insolence to enter my house. He admitted his guilt; then he besought and implored me not to kill him, but to exact a sum of money. [26] To this I replied, It is not I who am going to kill you, but our city’s law, which you have transgressed and regarded as of less account than your pleasures, choosing rather to commit this foul offence against my wife and my children than to obey the laws like a decent person. [27]

      Thus it was, sirs, that this man incurred the fate that the laws ordain for those who do such things; he had not been dragged in there from the street, nor had he taken refuge at my hearth⁴, as these people say. For how could it be so, when it was in the bedroom that he was struck and fell down then and there, and I pinioned his arms, and so many persons were in the house that he could not make his escape, as he had neither steel nor wood nor anything else with which he might have beaten off those who had entered? [28] But, sirs, I think you know as well as I that those whose acts are against justice do not acknowledge that their enemies speak the truth, but lie themselves and use other such devices to foment anger in their hearers against those whose acts are just. So, first read the law.Law [29]

      He did not dispute it, sirs: he acknowledged his guilt, and besought and implored that he might not be killed, and was ready to pay compensation in money. But I would not agree to his estimate, as I held that our city’s law should have higher authority; and I obtained that satisfaction which you deemed most just when you imposed it on those who adopt such courses. Now, let my witnesses come forward in support of these statements.Witnesses [30]

      Read out also, please, that law from the pillar in the Areopagus.Law

      You hear, sirs, how the Court of the Areopagus itself, to which has been assigned, in our own as in our fathers’ time, the trial of suits for murder, has expressly stated that whoever takes this vengeance on an adulterer caught in the act with his spouse shall not be convicted of murder. [31] And so strongly was the lawgiver convinced of the justice of this in the case of wedded wives, that he even applied the same penalty in the case of mistresses, who are of less account. Now surely it is clear that, if he had had any heavier punishment than this for the case of married women, he would have imposed it. But in fact, as he was unable to devise a severer one for this case, he ordained that it should be the same for that of mistresses also. Please read this law besides.Law [32]

      You hear, sirs, how it directs that, if anyone forcibly debauches a free adult or child, he shall be liable to double⁵ damages; while if he so debauches a woman, in one of the cases where it is permitted to kill him, he is subject to the same rule. Thus the lawgiver, sirs, considered that those who use force deserve a less penalty than those who use persuasion; for the latter he condemned to death, whereas for the former he doubled the damages, [33] considering that those who achieve their ends by force are hated by the persons forced; while those who used persuasion corrupted thereby their victims’ souls, thus making the wives of others more closely attached to themselves than to their husbands, and got the whole house into their hands, and caused uncertainty as to whose the children really were, the husbands’ or the adulterers’. In view of all this the author of the law made death their penalty. [34] Wherefore I, sirs, not only stand acquitted of wrongdoing by the laws, but am also directed by them to take this satisfaction: it is for you to decide whether they are to be valid or of no account. [35] For to my thinking every city makes its laws in order that on any matter which perplexes us we may resort to them and inquire what we have to do. And so it is they who, in cases like the present, exhort the wronged parties to obtain this kind of satisfaction. [36] I call upon you to support their opinion: otherwise, you will be giving adulterers such licence that you will encourage thieves as well to call themselves adulterers; since they will feel assured that, if they plead this reason in their defence, and allege that they enter other men’s houses for this purpose, nobody will touch them. For everyone will know that the laws on adultery are to be given the go-by, and that it is your vote that one has to fear, because this has supreme authority over all the city’s affairs. [37]

      Do but consider, sirs, what they say: they accuse me of ordering the maid-servant on that day to go and fetch the young man. Now I, sirs, could have held myself justified in using any possible means to catch the corrupter of my wife. [38] For if I had bidden the girl fetch him, when words alone had been spoken and no act had been committed, I should have been in the wrong: but if, when once he had compassed all his ends, and had frequently entered my house, I had then used any possible means to catch him, I should have considered myself quite in order. [39] And observe how on this point also they are lying: you will perceive it easily in this way. As I told you, sirs, before, Sostratus was a friend of mine, on intimate terms with me; he met me as he came from the country about sunset, and had dinner with me, and when he had made a good meal he left me and departed. Now in the first place, sirs, you must bear this in mind: [40] if on that night I had designs on Eratosthenes, which was more to my advantage, — to go and take my dinner elsewhere, or to bring in my guest to dinner with me? For in the latter case that man would have been less likely to venture on entering my house. And in the second place, do you suppose that I should have let my dinner guest go and leave me there alone and unsupported, and not rather have bidden him stay, in order that he might stand by me in taking vengeance upon the adulterer? [41] Then again, sirs, do you not think that I should have sent word to my intimate acquaintances in the daytime, and bidden them assemble at the house of one of my friends living nearest to me, rather than have waited till the moment of making my discovery to run round in the night, without knowing whom I should find at home, and who were away? Thus I called on Harmodius, and one other, who were not in town — of this I was not aware — and others, I found, were not in; but those whom I could I took along with me. [42] Yet if I had foreknown this, do you not think that I should have called up servants and passed the word to my friends, in order that I might have gone in myself with all possible safety, — for how could I tell whether he too had some weapon? — and so I might have had as many witnesses as possible with me when I took my vengeance? But as in fact I knew nothing of what was to befall on that night, I took with me those whom I could. Now let my witnesses come forward in support of all this.Witnesses [43]

      You have heard the witnesses, sirs; and consider this affair further in your own minds, asking yourselves whether any enmity has ever arisen before this between me and Eratosthenes. [44] I say you will discover none. For he had neither subjected me to slanderous impeachment, nor attempted to expel me from the city, nor brought any private suit against me, nor was he privy to any wrongdoing which I was so afraid of being divulged that I was intent on his destruction, nor, should I accomplish this, had I any hope of getting money from anywhere: for there are people who plot each other’s death for such purposes. [45] So far, indeed, from either abuse or a drunken brawl or any other quarrel having occurred between us, I had never even seen the man before that night. For what object, then, should I run so grave a risk, unless I had received from him the greatest of injuries? [46] Why, again, did I choose to summon witnesses for my wicked act, when it was open to me, if I was thus criminally intent on his destruction, to have none of them privy to it? [47]

      I therefore, sirs, do not regard this requital as having been exacted in my own private interest, but in that of the whole city. For those who behave in that way, when they see the sort of reward that is in store for such transgressions, will be less inclined to trespass against their neighbors, if they see that you also take the same view. [48] Otherwise it were better far to erase our established laws, and ordain others which will inflict the penalties on men who keep watch on their own wives, and will allow full immunity to those who would debauch them. [49] This would be a far more just way than to let the citizens be entrapped by the laws; these may bid a man, on catching an adulterer, to deal with him in whatever way he pleases, but the trials are found to be more dangerous to the wronged parties than to those who, in defiance of the laws, dishonor the wives of others. [50] For I am now risking the loss of life, property and all else that I have, because I obeyed the city’s laws.

      ENDNOTES.

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      ¹ The general statement in these last words shows that the full sense of the preceding is: the same requital is accorded to the weakest against the strongest as to the strongest against the weakest.

      ² Athenian women used white lead to give an artificial delicacy to their complexion; cf. Aristoph. Eccl. 878, 929.

      ³ A festival in honor of Demeter, celebrated by Athenian matrons in October.

      ⁴ The hearth in a Greek house retained its primitive sanctity as a center of the family religion, and it would be sacrilege to kill anyone there.

      ⁵ i.e., double the amount laid down for violating a slave.

      Funeral Oration

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      IF I BELIEVED it possible, friends who are attending this burial, to set forth in speech the valor of the men who lie here, I should have reproved those who gave me but a few days’ notice of having to speak over them. But as all mankind would find all time insufficient for preparing a speech to match their deeds, the city itself therefore, as I think, taking forethought for those who speak here, makes the appointment at short notice, in the belief that on such terms they will most readily obtain indulgence from their hearers. [2] However, while my speech is about these men, my contest is not with their deeds, but with the speakers who have preceded me in praising them. For their valor has provided matter in such abundance, alike for those who are able to compose in verse and for those who have chosen to make a speech, that, although many fair things have been spoken by those who preceded me, there are many that even they have omitted, and plenty more remain to be said by those who succeed them; since nowhere is there any land or sea on which they did not venture, and in every place and every nation the people, is lamenting their own disasters, glorify the valorous deeds of these men. [3]

      So now, in the first place, I shall recount the ancient ordeals of our ancestors, drawing remembrance thereof from their renown. For they also are events which all men ought to remember, glorifying them in their songs, and describing them in the sage sayings of worthy minds; honoring them on such occasions as this, and finding in the achievements of the dead so many lessons for the living. [4]

      In ancient times were the Amazons, daughters of Ares, dwelling beside the river Thermodon;¹ they alone of the people round about were armed with iron, and they were first of all to mount horses, with which, owing to the inexperience of their foes, they surprised them and either caught those who fled, or outstripped those who pursued. They were accounted as men for their high courage, rather than as women for their sex; so much more did they seem to excel men in their spirit than to be at a disadvantage in their form. [5] Ruling over many nations, they had in fact achieved the enslavement of those around them; yet, hearing by report concerning this our country how great was its renown, they were moved by increase of glory and high ambition to muster the most warlike of the nations and march with them against this city. But having met with valiant men they found their spirit now was like to their sex; the repute that they got was the reverse of the former, and by their perils rather than by their bodies they were deemed to be women. [6] They stood alone in failing to learn from their mistakes, and so to be better advised in their future actions; they would not return home and report their own misfortune and our ancestors’ valor: for they perished on the spot, and were punished for their folly, thus making our city’s memory imperishable for its valor; while owing to their disaster in this region they rendered their own country nameless. And so those women, by their unjust greed for others’ land, justly lost their own. [7]

      When Adrastus² and Polyneices had marched against Thebes and had been vanquished in battle, and the Cadmeans would not allow the corpses to be buried, the Athenians decided that, if those men had done some wrong, they had paid by their death the heaviest penalty, while the gods below were not obtaining their dues, and by the pollution of the shrines the gods above were being treated with impiety: so first they sent heralds and requested permission to take up the corpses, [8] considering it to be the duty of brave men to take vengeance on their enemies while they lived, but a mark of self-distrust to display their valor over the bodies of the dead. When they failed to obtain this, they marched against them: no previous quarrel subsisted between them and the Cadmeans, nor did they wish to gratify the Argives who were yet living; [9] but thinking it right that those who had died in the war should receive the customary treatment, they risked combat with one of the parties in the interest of both, that on the one side they should cease from grossly outraging the gods by their trespass against the dead, and that on the other they should not hasten away to their own land frustrated of an ancestral honor, cut off from Hellenic custom, and disappointed in a common hope. [10] With these thoughts in their minds, and holding that the fortunes of war are shared by all men in common, they faced a numerous enemy, but had justice as their ally, and they fought and conquered. And they did not allow themselves to be so elated by their fortune as to seek a heavier punishment of the Cadmeans, but in contrast to their impiety showed forth their own virtue, and obtaining for themselves the price for which they had come — the corpses of the Argives — they buried them in their own land of Eleusis. Such, then, is the character that they have evinced in regard to those of the Seven against Thebes who were slain.³ [11]

      In a later time, when Heracles had vanished from amongst men, and his children were fleeing from Eurystheus and were expelled by all the Greeks, who were ashamed of these acts but afraid of Eurystheus’ power, they came to this city, and seated themselves as suppliants at our altars.⁴ [12] And when Eurystheus demanded them, the Athenians refused to give them up, but revered the virtue of Heracles more than they feared their own danger, and preferred to do battle for the weaker on the side of right, rather than favor the powerful by giving up to them the men whom they had wronged. [13] Eurystheus marched against them with the people who held the Peloponnese at that time; yet they did not falter at the approach of the danger, but maintained the same resolve as before, though they had received no particular benefit at the father’s hands, and could not tell what manner of men the sons would grow to be. [14] Acting on what they held to be just, on no grounds of former enmity against Eurystheus, with no gain in view but good repute, they made this perilous venture on behalf of those children, pitying the wronged and hating the oppressor; attempting to check the one, and engaging to assist the other; conceiving it a sign of freedom to do nothing against one’s will, of justice to succor the wronged, and of courage to die, if need be, in fighting for those two things at once. [15] So high was the spirit of both sides that Eurystheus and his forces sought no advantage from any offer of the Athenians, while the Athenians would not suffer Eurystheus, even at his own supplication, to take away their suppliants. Having arrayed their own sole force against the host assembled from the whole Peloponnese, they conquered them in battle, rescued the sons of Heracles from bodily peril, liberating also their souls by ridding them of fear, and by their own daring crowned the sons with the meed of their father’s valor. [16] So much happier in the event were these, the children, than the father; for he, though author of many benefits to all mankind, devoting his life to a laborious quest of victory and honor, did indeed chastise those who wronged others, but was unable to punish Eurystheus, who was both his enemy and his oppressor. Whereas his sons, thanks to this city, saw on the same day both their own deliverance and the punishment of their enemies. [17]

      Now in many ways it was natural to our ancestors, moved by a single resolve, to fight the battles of justice: for the very beginning of their life was just. They had not been collected, like most nations, from every quarter, and had not settled in a foreign land after driving out its people: they were born of the soil, and possessed in one and the same country their mother and their fatherland. [18] They were the first and the only people in that time to drive out the ruling classes⁵ of their state and to establish a democracy, believing the liberty of all to be the strongest bond of agreement; by sharing with each other the hopes born of their perils they had freedom of soul in, their civic life, [19] and used law for honoring the good and punishing the evil. For they deemed that it was the way of wild beasts to be held subject to one another by force, but the duty of men to delimit justice by law, to convince by reason, and to serve these two in act by submitting to the sovereignty of law and the instruction of reason. [20]

      For indeed, being of noble stock and having minds as noble, the ancestors of those who lie here achieved many noble and admirable things; but ever memorable and mighty are the trophies that their descendants have everywhere left behind them owing to their valor. For they alone risked their all in defending the whole of Greece against many myriads of the barbarians. [21] For the King of Asia, not content with the wealth that he had already, but hoping to enslave Europe as well, dispatched an army of five hundred thousand. These, supposing that, if they obtained the willing friendship of this city or overwhelmed its resistance, they would easily dominate the rest of the Greeks, landed at Marathon, thinking that we should be most destitute of allies if they made their venture at a moment when Greece was in dissension as to the best means of repelling the invaders. [22] Besides, from the former actions of our city they had conceived a particular opinion of her: they thought that if they attacked another city first, they would be at war with it and Athens as well, for she would be zealous in coming to succor her injured neighbors; but if they made their way here first, no Greeks elsewhere would dare attempt the deliverance of others, and for their sake incur the open hostility of the foreigners. [23] These, then, were the motives of the foe. But our ancestors, without stopping to calculate the hazards of the war, but holding that a glorious death leaves behind it a deathless account of deeds well done, had no fear of the multitude of their adversaries, but rather had confidence in their own valor. And feeling ashamed that the barbarians were in their country, they did not wait till their allies should be informed and come to their support; rather than have to thank others for their salvation, they chose that the rest of the Greeks should have to thank them. [24] With this one resolve in the minds of all, they marched to the encounter, though few against many: for death, in their opinion, was a thing for them to share with all men, but prowess with a few; and while they possessed their lives, because of mortality, as alien things, they would leave behind something of their own in the memory attached to their perils. And they deemed that a victory which they could not win alone would be as impossible with the aid of their allies. If vanquished, they would perish a little before the others; if victorious, they would liberate the others with themselves. [25] They proved their worth as men, neither sparing their limbs nor cherishing their lives when valor called, and had more reverence for their city’s laws than fear of their perils in face of the enemy; and so in their own land they set up on behalf of Greece a trophy of victory over the barbarians, who had invaded others’ territory for money, [26] past the frontiers of their land; and so swiftly did they surmount their ordeal that by the same messengers information reached the other Greeks both of the barbarians’ arrival here and of our ancestors’ triumph. For indeed none of the other Greeks knew fear for the peril to come; they only heard the news and rejoiced over their own liberation. No wonder, then, that these deeds performed long ago should be as though they were new, and that even to this day the valor of that band should be envied by all mankind. [27]

      Thereafter Xerxes, King of Asia, who had held Greece in contempt, but had been deceived in his hopes, who was dishonored by the event, galled by the disaster, and angered against its authors, and who was unused to ill-hap and unacquainted with true men, in ten years’ time prepared for war and came with twelve hundred ships; and the land army that he brought was so immense in numbers that to enumerate even the nations that followed in his train would be a lengthy task. [28] But the surest evidence of their numbers is this: although he had a thousand ships to spare for transporting his land army over the most narrow part of the Hellespont, he decided against it, for he judged that it would cause him a great waste of time: [29] despising alike the effects of nature, the dispositions of Heaven and the purposes of men, he made him a road across the sea, and forced a passage for ships through the land, by spanning the Hellespont and trenching Athos; none withstood him, for the unwilling submitted, and the willing chose to be traitors. The former were not capable of resisting, and the latter were corrupted by bribes: they were under the double persuasion of gain and dread. [30] But while Greece showed these inclinations, the Athenians, for their part, embarked in their ships and hastened to the defence of Artemisium; while the Lacedaemonians and some of their allies went off to make a stand at Thermopylae, judging that the narrowness of the ground would enable them to secure the passage. [31] The trial came for both at the sane time: the Athenians conquered in the sea-fight, while the Lacedaemonians, showing no failure of spirit, but deceived as to the numbers alike of those whom they expected to mount guard and of those with whom they had to contend, were destroyed, not having been worsted by their adversaries, but slain where they had been stationed for battle. [32] When in this manner the one side had suffered disaster, and the other had captured the passage, the invaders advanced against this city; while our ancestors, informed of the calamity that had befallen the Lacedaemonians, and perplexed by the difficulties that surrounded them, were aware that, if they marched out to meet the barbarians on land, they would sail against the city with a thousand ships and take it undefended, and if they embarked on their war-vessels they would be reduced by the land army; that they⁶ would be unequal to the double strain of repelling the foe and leaving behind a sufficient garrison. [33] So having to choose one of two courses, either to desert their native land or to join the barbarians in enslaving the Greeks, they decided to prefer freedom together with valor and poverty and exile to their country’s servitude in infamy and wealth: they left their city for the sake of Greece, that they might challenge each of the two forces⁷ in turn, not both at once. [34] They deposited their children and wives and mothers safe in Salamis, and assembled to their aid the ships of their allies. A few days later both the land army and the fleet of the barbarians appeared; at such a sight, who would not have been afraid of the greatness and terror of the danger that had come upon our city in her struggle for the freedom of Greece? [35] What were the feelings of those who beheld their friends on board those ships, when their own salvation was as doubtful as the approaching contest; or again, of those who were about to do battle at sea for their dearest, for the prizes there in Salamis? [36] On every hand they were surrounded by such a multitude of foes that they reckoned it the least of their present troubles to anticipate their own death, but saw the greatest of disasters in the fate that they must expect to be dealt by the barbarians, if successful, to those whom they had transported from the city. [37] We may be sure that the perplexity of their case made them often grasp each other by the hand, and with reason bewail their plight; knowing their own ships to be few, and seeing those of the foe to be many; understanding that their city was now deserted, that their land was being ravaged and overrun by the barbarians, that the temples were being burnt, and that horrors of every kind were close upon them. [38] At the same moment they heard mingled battle hymns of Greek and barbarian, exhortations on either side, and shrieks of the perishing: the sea was full of corpses, there was clashing of many wrecks of friends’ and foemen’s vessels, and for a long time the sea-fight was evenly balanced; they seemed at one moment to have conquered and been saved, at another to have been defeated and destroyed. [39] Certainly the fear that was upon them must have made them believe that they saw many things which they saw not, and heard many that they did not hear. What supplications, what reminders of sacrifices, were not sent up to Heaven! What pity was felt for children, what yearning over wives, what compassion for fathers and mothers, in calculating the evils that would result from their ill success! [40] What deity would have denied them pity for such an awful danger? What man but would have shed tears? Who would not have marvelled at their daring? Beyond all compare did those men in their valor surpass all mankind, whether in their counsels or in the perils of that war; for they abandoned their city and embarked on their ships, and pitted their own few lives against the multitude of Asia. [41] They declared to all men, by their victory in the sea-fight, that there is better hope for the venture shared with a few in the cause of freedom than for that in which numerous subjects of a king contend for their own servitude. [42] They made the fullest and fairest contribution in aid of the freedom of the Greeks by providing Themistocles as commander, most competent to speak and decide and act, and ships more numerous than those of all their allies, and men of the greatest experience. For indeed who among the rest of the Greeks could have vied with these in decision, in number, and in valor? [43] Hence it was just that they should receive from Greece without dispute the prize of prowess in the sea-fight, and

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