IV. Causes relating to a scrutiny ( δοκιμασία) before the senate; especially of officials designate.

IV. 1. Against Evandros, Or. XXVI

1. Against Evandros. [Or. XXVI.]—In the second year of the 99th Olympiad (381/2 B. C.) Leôdamas¹ drew the lot to be First Archon for the following year; and Evandros was at the same time designated First Archon in reserve². Leôdamas, before entering upon the archonship, had to pass a scrutiny ( δοκιμασία) before the Senate. On this occasion he was accused by Thrasybulos of Collytos; the Senate rejected him; and the office thus came to Evandros. But Evandros also had to pass a scrutiny; and the present speech is made to the Senate in order to prove that he is ineligible.³

The case is heard on the last day but one of Ol. 99. 2, i.e. at about midsummer of our year 382 B. C.⁴. The last day of the Attic year was a public holiday, on which no law-court could sit, and on which a sacrifice to Zeus Sôtêr was celebrated by the First Archon. If, therefore, the Senate rejected Evandros, no time remained for an appeal to an ordinary court; and the State would be left without its chief magistrate at one of its great solemnities (§ 6).

The election of Evandros was, in fact, ratified; for ⁵ he appears in the lists as Archon for the following year, Ol. 99. 3. This date is confirmed by allusions in the speech.

Thrasybulos the Collytean is charged in § 23 with having estranged Boeotia from Athens and with having lost Athenian ships. The first accusation refers to the establishment of oligarchies in the Boeotian cities, through Spartan influence, after the Peace of Antalkidas; and is curiously illustrated by the reference of Aeschines to Thrasybulos of Collytos as a man of great influence at Thebes⁶. The second accusation refers to an incident of the war on the Hellespont five years before. In 387 B. C. eight triremes under the command of this Thrasybulos were captured by Antalkidas near Abydos⁷.

All the first part of the speech has been lost in those eight pages of the Palatine MS. which contained the conclusion of the Twenty-fifth Speech and the whole of that Against Nikides⁸. The special charges made by the accuser, and the depositions to which he alludes (§ 8), were in this part. What remains is chiefly his answer to certain pleas which he conceives that Evandros may urge. ⁹

It is hard—the speaker says—that, not content with impunity for his offences against the people, Evandros should ask for office. Evandros relies on the recent sobriety ( ἡσυχιότης, § 5) of his life—which has been compulsory: and on his father's liberality—who used the influence thus gained to overthrow the democracy (§§ 1—5). He has contrived to delay his scrutiny until the last day but one of the year, when there is no time to appoint another First Archon. But the sacrifices of the morrow will surely be more pleasing to the gods, though offered only by the King Archon and his colleagues, than if the celebrant were a man whose hands are stained with the blood shed in the days of the Thirty Tyrants (§§ 6—8). One of the principal objects of the law of Scrutinies ( ὁ περὶ τῶν δοκιμασιῶν νόμος, § 9) is to exclude from office in a democracy those who have abused power under an oligarchy. The mere fact of having been an ordinary knight or senator under the Thirty disqualifies a man for a place in the Council of Five Hundred. Evandros was more than this; he was guilty of special crimes against the people; and shall he be First Archon? He will thus become a member of the Areiopagos for life, and murderers will be tried by a murderer. And this through the influence of Thrasybulos, a traitor to Athens. It must not be supposed that the speaker opposes Evandros for the sake of Leôdamas. Leôdamas would be well pleased that the Senate should prove itself oligarchical by confirming so unpopular an appointment (§§ 10—15).

Evandros appeals to the Amnesty [of 403 B. C.]; but that Amnesty did not mean that the honours, as well as the toleration, of the State should be accorded to its recent enemies (§§ 16—20). Let the Senate compare the accuser with the advocate of Evandros. The accuser is pure of all connection with oligarchies; his ancestors fought against the Peisistratidae; his family have exhausted a large fortune upon the State. Thrasybulos has alienated the Boeotians from Athens; has lost her ships, and brought her to despair. If the Court reflects which of these two men ought rather to prevail, it will decide rightly upon the claims of Evandros (§§ 21—24).

Unwillingness to mar a great annual festival may have influenced the Senate when they confirmed the election; but there is no proof that the grounds upon which it was opposed were good. The accuser must have felt that his case was well-nigh hopeless. This, ¹⁰ and the feeling of Lysias himself towards all who had been concerned in the violence of the Anarchy, will partly account for the extreme bitterness and unfairness of this speech. In two places the tone is especially marked. First, where the accuser admits that since the restoration of the democracy Evandros has been a thoroughly good citizen, and then argues that he deserves no credit for it (§§ 3—5); again, where he maintains that the dokimasia was instituted for the express purpose of keeping oligarchs out of office (§ 9). The outburst against Thrasybulos at the end is of a piece with this (§ 23). A certain boldness of expression, hardly congenial to Lysias, corresponds with the excited tone of the speech¹¹, which has the air of having been written in haste, to support a cause already desperate.

IV. 2. For Mantitheos, Or. XVI

2. For Mantitheos. [Or. XVI.]—The name occurs only in the title, which, contrary to the general rule, is perhaps of the same age as the speech—‘A Defence for Mantitheos on his Scrutiny before the Senate.’ What the office was to which this scrutiny related, can only be guessed; perhaps it was that of an ordinary senator, since in § 8 the speaker cites instances of persons who had really done what he is charged with doing, and had yet been admitted to the Senate. The complaint against him was that his name appeared on the list ( σανίς, cf. § 6) of those who had served as Knights in the time of the Thirty. As the speech Against Evandros shows (§ 10), the fact of such service under the Tyrants became, after the restoration of the democracy, a disqualification for the office of senator. Mantitheos must, then, have been at least eighteen years of age in 405 B. C., and so must have been born before 422. He refers to his share in campaigns subsequent to that of 394 B.C. (§§ 15—18). On the other hand, the tone of the joke in § 15 rather suggests that Thrasybulos, its object, was still alive;—that is, that the speech is earlier ¹² than 389 B. C.¹³. The date may have been about 392 B. C. The speaker, who was taunted with youthful presumption (§ 20), cannot have been much more than thirty.¹⁴

The first disproves the charge against him of having served as a Knight under the Thirty Tyrants. Before the disaster on the Hellespont [405 B.C.], his father had sent him and his brother to the Euxine, to Satyros [king of the Kimmerian Bosporos]; and they did not return to Athens till five days before the democratic exiles captured the Peiraeus [404 B.C.] (§ 4). The appearance of his name upon the list of Knights at that time proves nothing; the list has many false entries and many omissions. Here is a better proof on the other side:—when the democracy was restored, the phylarch (captain of cavalry) of each tribe was directed to recover from each Knight who had served under the Tyrants the sum paid to him by the State for his equipment when he was first enrolled ( κατάστασις, § 6). Now Mantitheos was never called upon to refund, nor brought before the Fiscal Board ( σὑνδικοι, § 7)—(§§ 1—8).

Having disproved the charge against him, he goes on to urge his positive merits. His private life has been blameless. After his father's death, he portioned his two sisters and helped his brother. Men who are fond of dice and wine have a marked aversion to him (§ 11). Then his public services have been constant. He volunteered on the expedition for the relief of Haliartos [395 B.C.] (§ 13). In the next year he fought in the disastrous battle of Corinth, and retreated later than ‘the majestic Steirian [Thrasybulos], who has taunted all the world with cowardice’ (§ 15). In the autumn of the same year [394 B. C.] he and his company volunteered for service against Agesilaos in Boeotia. Since then, he has constantly served in the field or in garrison (§ 18).—(§§ 9—19).

Some have taunted him with forwardness because, though so young, he has spoken in the ekklesia. His own affairs, however, compelled him to do so at first. Perhaps, indeed, he has been too ambitious. But he could not help thinking of his forefathers, who had always been in public life and served the State, and he saw that Athenians, to tell the truth, respected none but those who could act and speak for the city. ‘And why should you be annoyed with such men? You yourselves and none else are their judges’ (§§ 20, 21).

Perhaps hardly anything in Greek literature has ¹⁵ a fresher or brighter charm than this short speech— the natural, wonderfully vivid expression of an attractive character. Mantitheos is the brilliant, ambitious young Athenian, burning to fulfil the Homeric ideal by distinguishing himself in council as in war; an Alkibiades made harmless by the sentiment of chivalry. The general tone of simple self-reliance, and possibly the gibe at Thrasybulos, may have been found refreshing by elderly senators. Mantitheos had really done good service in the field; and his statement of this is followed by an ingenuous apology for over-eagerness to shine in the ekklesia. The last passage is masterly. The virtue of ‘minding one's own affairs’ ( ἀπραγμοσύνη) was often praised at Athens; but Mantitheos goes to the centre of Athenian instincts when he tells the judges that ‘to say the truth’ they respect no men who do not take part in public life¹⁶.

IV. 3. Against Philon, Or. XXXI

3. Against Philon. [Or. XXXI.]—This speech may be considered as a companion-piece to the last; being an Accusation, as the other is probably a Defence, at a dokimasia for the Senate. Philon—a man otherwise unknown—had been chosen by lot a member of the Senate of Five Hundred; and had appeared before that body, with others designated to places in it, in order to pass the scrutiny. The speaker, himself a senator, comes forward to oppose the admission of Philon. The date cannot be fixed. Philon is accused of having gone about Attica, plundering ‘the oldest of the citizens,’ who had stayed quietly in their ¹⁷ demes (§ 18); and some of these citizens were still alive: some time between 404 and 395 B. C. may therefore be assumed.¹⁸

The speaker begins by protesting that no private enmity, but only regard to his oath as senator, induces him to appear against Philon. What is the definition of a worthy senator? One who both is, and desires to be, a citizen (§ 5). Now when the troubles came on Athens [405 B. C.], Philon proved how little he valued his citizenship. He neither stayed with the oligarchs in the town, nor joined the exiles at Phylê, but went to Orôpus—paid the resident-alien's tax, and lived under the protection of a patron. This shall be proved by witnesses (§§ 1—14). If he says that he was unfit for fighting, it can be shown that his name does not appear among those of the citizens who, instead of personal service, paid money or armed their demesmen (§§ 15, 16). Nor was he merely passive: he did positive wrong to aged citizens of Athens whom he met with in the country (§§ 17—19). This corresponds with his treatment of his own mother, who transferred the keeping of her money from her son to a stranger (§§ 20—23). Why should such as he be a senator? The betrayer of a garrison, a fleet, or a camp is punished; but Philon has betrayed the State itself (§§ 24—26).

‘He has broken no law,’ he says. No: for an offence so enormous was never expressly contemplated by any legislator (§§ 27, 28). If the aliens who helped Athens in her need were honoured, surely the citizens who abandoned her should be disgraced. The advocates who claim honour for Philon now would have done better had they advised him to deserve it then (§§ 29—33). Let each senator ask himself why he was admitted to that dignity, and he will see why Philon ought to be shut out from it (§ 34).

The tone of this address is in contrast with that ¹⁹ of the protest against the election of Evandros: it is severe and decided, but not bitter or unfair. A character which seems to have been really contemptible is drawn without passion, each statement being supported by evidence; and the assertion of the speaker, that only a sense of duty prompted him to accuse, is at least not contradicted by his method. The style is rhetorical, and rather more openly artificial than is usual with Lysias (see esp. §§ 11, 32); but it has all his compactness and force—of which the short appeal at the end is a good example. One point of ²⁰ historical interest comes out. Philon is accused of having taken part, in 405 B. C., neither with oligarchs nor with democrats. He pleads:—‘Had it been an offence not to be present at such a time, a law would have been made expressly on that subject.’ The answer is, that, owing to the inconceivable enormity of the offence, no law has been enacted on the subject (§ 27). So completely had Solon's enactment against neutrality—to which the speaker could have appealed with so much rhetorical effect—passed out of the remembrance of that generation²¹ .

IV. 4. Defence on a Charge of seeking to abolish the Democracy, Or. XXV

4. Defence on a Charge of seeking to abolish the Democracy. [Or. XXV.]—This title, given to the speech in the MSS., is clearly wrong. The speaker is, indeed, chiefly concerned to prove that he is guiltless of any share in the crimes of the Thirty Tyrants; but it is clear that he was not upon his trial for high treason. There is no reference to any penalties which threatened him. The question is whether he shall, or shall not, be admitted to certain privileges. Thus in § 3 he insists on his claim to participation in the advantages of citizenship; in § 4 he speaks of rights which citizens who have done no evil ought to share with positive benefactors of the State; in § 14 he says to the judges:—‘If, when I might have had office, I declined it, I have a right to receive honour from you now.’ Clearly this speech was delivered on ²² the occasion of a dokimasia for some office to which the speaker had been designated, but his admission to which was opposed. The cause is heard by an ordinary court—probably under the presidency of the Thesmothetae²³—and on appeal from a decision for the speaker already given by the Senate. The date ²⁴ must be placed between 402 and 400 B. C.; probably nearer to the lower limit²⁵. The accusers were Epigenes, Diophanes and Kleisthenes (§ 25). The defendant is not named.

It would not be strange, he says, if the speeches made ²⁶ against him had excited the indignation of the judges against all, without distinction, who had remained at Athens under the Thirty. Much more might, indeed, have been said about the crimes of the Tyrants. But it is unmeaning to charge those crimes upon men who had no share in them. If he can prove that he is innocent, he may surely claim at least the ordinary privileges of citizenship in common with men of more distinguished services (§§ 1—6). No man is born an oligarch or a democrat. He becomes one or the other according to his private interest ( τῶν ἰδίᾳ συμφερόντων, § 10). This is proved by history. Phrynichos and Peisandros were demagogues before they became oligarchs. Men who helped to overthrow the Four Hundred were afterwards numbered with the Thirty: many of the Four Hundred themselves were with the democrats at the Peiraeus; some of those who had expelled the Four Hundred were afterwards among the Thirty; and some of the men who gave in their names for the march against Eleusis, after going forth with the people, were besieged along with the Tyrants²⁷.

The explanation is simply that their interests varied at different times. Now, the interest of the speaker lay wholly with the democracy. He had been five times trierarch and had been in four sea-fights (§ 12). The establishment of the Thirty destroyed his chance of reward for these services. Neither under the First Oligarchy nor under the Second did he hold office (§§ 7—14). If he did no wrong in the Anarchy, much more will he be a good citizen under the restored Democracy. The victims of the Tyrants must not be confounded with their agents. It was the error of the Thirty that they visited the sins of a few corrupt demagogues on all the citizens: let not the people so err now (§§ 15—20). Dissensions among the Thirty gave the exiles their first hopes of success; let not disunion in the democracy now give occasion to the enemies of Athens, but let the oaths of amnesty be kept towards all (§§ 21—24). After the fall of the Four Hundred, the rigours which bad advisers caused to be adopted against their political opponents brought the city to ruin. And now sycophants, counselling a revengeful policy, oppose themselves to the views of those who were really active in restoring the democracy. Such men show what they would have been had they shared the power of the Thirty. The friends of the city advise differently. Let the Amnesty hold good for all. When those who are really answerable for the past troubles are brought to account, severity is excusable; but innocent men must not be mixed up with them (§§ 25—35).

The speaker had evidently been closely connected with the party of the Tyrants; for though he states his services to the democracy before 405 B. C., of his political character since that time he has nothing better to say than that it has been harmless; indeed, he implies a contrast between himself and those who had been true to the democracy at its need (§ 4). It is hard to understand the high praise which ²⁸ has been given to this speech by some critics of Lysias²⁹; it is barely conceivable that one of the ablest of them should count it his best work³⁰. The speaker's interpretation of the Amnesty is, indeed, larger and truer than the opposite view taken by the accuser of Evandros³¹; and his elaborate exposition of the doctrine that political creed is purely an affair of self interest may claim the praise of candour. The style has vigour, but neither brilliancy nor dignity; and the êthos of the speaker, as a moderately intelligent and thoroughly practical man, can scarcely be accounted persuasive³².

IV. 5. For the Invalid, Or. XXIV

5. For the Invalid. [Or. XXIV.]—This speech may conveniently be classed with the four preceding, since it was written for a dokimasia, although the scrutiny in this case was of a different kind. At ³³ Athens a certain allowance was made by the State to the ἀδύνατοι³⁴: that is, to persons who were unable, through bodily ailment, to earn a livelihood, and who had less than three minae of private property. Once a year, or perhaps oftener, the list of applicants for such relief was scrutinised by the Senate³⁵ and then passed by the ekklesia (§ 22). It is on the occasion of such a scrutiny that the present speech is made. The speaker had for years (§ 8) been in receipt of an obol daily (§ 26) from the State; but lately it had been attempted to show that he was not entitled to public relief. This objection is termed in the title to the speech (not in the speech itself) an eisangelia; but had, of course, nothing in common with eisangeliae technically so called except that it was an accusation laid immediately before the Senate. The ³⁶ date appears from § 25 to have been later than 403 B. C.

Having premised that jealousy is the only conceivable ³⁷ motive for this attack upon him, the speaker comes to the two objections which have been made to his receiving the public alms:—that he is not really a cripple; and that he has a trade (§§ 1—4). He answers the second objection first (§§ 5—9); and then refutes the other with a good deal of grim humour (§§ 10—14). Lastly, he defends his general character (§§ 15—20), and concludes with an entreaty not to be deprived of his obol a day (§§ 21—27).

Harpokration seems³⁸ to have doubted the genuineness ³⁹ of this speech; possibly on the ground taken by Boeckh⁴⁰—that Lysias would not have written, nor the Senate endured, so elaborate an address on such a subject. This seems a most unsafe argument against a composition excellent of its kind, and excellent in a way suggestive of Lysias. The humour, broad, but stopping short of burlesque, exactly suits the condition of the speaker; and there is true art in the ironical pathos of the invalid, when, using an Attic illustration, he remarks that his infirmity is disputed with him by his adversary as eagerly as if it were an heiress (§ 14).

Sir Richard C. Jebb The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos 1.10.5

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IV. Causes relating to a scrutiny ( δοκιμασία) before the senate; especially of officials designate.

IV. 1. Against Evandros, Or. XXVI

IV. 2. For Mantitheos, Or. XVI

IV. 3. Against Philon, Or. XXXI

IV. 4. Defence on a Charge of seeking to abolish the Democracy, Or. XXV

IV. 5. For the Invalid, Or. XXIV

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