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VI. Causes relating to murder or intent to murder ( γραφαὶ φόνου — τραύματος ἐκ προνοίας).

VI. 1. Against Eratosthenes, Or. XII

1. Against Eratosthenes. [Or. XII.]—Polemarchos, brother of Lysias, had been put to death by the Thirty Tyrants. Eratosthenes, one of their number, was the man who had arrested him and taken him to prison. In this speech Lysias, himself the speaker, charges Eratosthenes with the murder of Polemarchos, and, generally, with his share in the Tyranny.

A question has to be considered in regard to the ¹ form of the accusation. Was Eratosthenes prosecuted under an ordinary indictment for murder? Or was he accused on the occasion of his coming forward to render account of his office as one of the Thirty?

On the former supposition it is hard to say before what court the trial took place. Clearly it was not the Areiopagos. If it was the Delphinion, then Eratosthenes must have pleaded some justification of the homicide; but he admits its guilt, and lays the blame on his colleagues (§ 24). If it was an ordinary heliastic court under the presidency of the Eleven, then there must have been an arrest ( ἀπαγωγή) by the Eleven; but this does not seem to have taken place².

The other supposition offers less difficulty. A special clause in the Amnesty of 403 B. C. excluded the Thirty Tyrants, the Ten who had succeeded them, and the Eleven who had served them. But any one even of these might enjoy the Amnesty if he chose to stand a public inquiry, and was acquitted³. When the oligarchy was finally overthrown, Pheidon and Eratosthenes were the only members⁴ of it who stayed at Athens. As they dared to do this, they must have availed themselves of the permission to give account of their office. And Lysias could have had no better opportunity for preferring his accusation than that which would be given by the public inquiry into the conduct of Eratosthenes. Two things in the speech itself tend to show that it was spoken on this occasion. First, its general scope. It has a wider range, and deals more generally with the history of the Anarchy, than would be natural if it was concerned exclusively with an ordinary indictment for murder. Only the first third of the speech relates to Polemarchos; thenceforth to the end his name is not mentioned, even in the peroration; the political offences of Eratosthenes are exclusively dwelt upon. It may be noticed, too, that at the commencement Lysias speaks in the plural of ‘the defendants’ and their hostility to Athens, as if Eratosthenes was only in the same predicament with several other persons. Secondly, an expression in § 37 should be noticed. The speaker there says that he has done enough in having shown that the guilt of the accused reaches the point at which death is deserved. He would not have said this if death had been the necessary penalty in case of conviction. But he might well say it if his charge was preferred, among many others, when Eratosthenes was giving his account, and when the question was what degree of punishment, if any, he was to suffer⁵ . ⁶

The date must be 403 B. C., the year of Eukleides. After their flight from Athens the Thirty maintained themselves for a short time at Eleusis. Soon after the restoration of the democracy, an expedition was made against Eleusis; the generals of the Thirty, who came out to ask for a parley, were seized and put to death; and the Tyrants, with their chief adherents, fled from Attica ( Xen. Hellen. II. iv. 43 ). But it is clear from § 80 of the speech that this expedition had not yet taken place.

Again, in §§ 92 f. Lysias addresses successively two distinct parties—the ‘men of the city’ who remained in Athens under the Thirty, and the ‘men of the Peiraeus.’ The line of demarcation could have been drawn so sharply only while the war of parties was quite recent; not two or three years later, when exiles and oligarchs had long been fused once more into one civic body. It was, no doubt, remembered for years who had been on one side and who on the other. But in a speech made (say) in 400 B. C., we should not find the ‘men of the city’ and the ‘men of Peiraeus’ addressed separately as if they still formed two distinct camps.

The speech falls into two divisions. The first and shorter (§§ 1—36) deals with the special charge against Eratosthenes; the second, with his political character and with the crimes of the Tyrants generally.

I. §§ 1—36.

⁷

The difficulty here is not how to begin, but where to stop. Ordinarily the accuser is expected to show that he has some motive for hostility to the accused. Here it would be more natural to ask the accused what motive he and his fellows have had for their hostility to Athens (§§ 1—3).

Lysias then enters on his narrative of the facts. His father had been invited by Perikles to settle at Athens as a resident-alien, and had lived there peaceably for thirty years. His family had never been involved in any troubles until the time of the Thirty Tyrants. Theognis and Peison, members of that body, suggested the policy of plundering the residentaliens. These two men first paid a visit to the shield-manufactory of Lysias and his brother, and took an inventory of the slaves. They next came to the dwelling-house of Lysias, and got all his ready money, about three talents. He managed to slip away from them, and took refuge with a friend in the Peiraeus; then, hearing that his brother Polemarchos had been met in the street by Eratosthenes and taken to prison, he escaped by night to Megara. Polemarchos received the usual mandate of the Thirty—to drink the hemlock; and had a beggar's burial. Though he and Lysias had yielded such rich plunder, the very earrings were taken from the ears of his wife (§ 19). Now the murderer of Polemarchos was Eratosthenes (§§ 4—23). Here he is briefly cross-examined:—

‘Did you arrest Polemarchos or not?’ ‘Terrified by the orders of the authorities—I proceeded to do so.’ ‘And were you in the council chamber when we were being talked about?’ ‘I was.’ ‘Did you support, or oppose, those who advised our execution?’ ‘Opposed them.’ ‘Opposed our being put to death?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Considering such treatment of us to be unjust—or just?’ ‘Unjust.’

Lysias comments indignantly on these answers. If Eratosthenes had really protested against the sentence, he would not have been selected to make the arrest. He was one of the Thirty themselves and had nothing to fear. All the circumstances disprove his pretence of good-will; instead of contenting himself with a visit to the house of Polemarchos, he seized him in the street; he gave him no friendly hint beforehand. If it is true that he opposed the sentence, he must at least prove that he did not make the arrest, or did not make it in a harsh manner. The judges are then reminded of the importance which their decision will have as an example for both citizens and foreigners. The fate of the generals who conquered at Arginusae is contrasted with the deserts of those who profited by the defeat at Aegospotami. If those suffered death, what is due to these? (§§ 24—36.)

II. §§ 37—100.

To say more is superfluous: the guilt of Eratosthenes has already been shown to be capital. But lest he should appeal to his past life, this must be exposed. In the first oligarchy [411 B. C.] he had to fly from the Hellespont after an unsuccessful attempt to corrupt the democratic crews of Athenian vessels there. After the defeat of Athens [405 B. C.] he and Kritias were first among the Five Ephori and afterwards among the Thirty Tyrants. Perhaps he will say that he obeyed the Thirty through fear. No, in the cause of Theramenes he dared to oppose them. But this opposition was not patriotic; all the quarrels among the Thirty were selfish. The so-called moderate party to which Theramenes belonged was represented by the later Board of Ten. And the Ten, instead of promoting peace, waged war with the exiles more bitterly than the Thirty (§§ 37—61).

Theramenes is the man whom Eratosthenes takes credit for having defended. It can be fancied how eagerly he would have claimed friendship with Themistokles, who built the walls of Athens, if he is proud of friendship with Theramenes —who pulled them down. Theramenes, when a member of the first oligarchy, betrayed his own closest friends, Antiphon and Archeptolemos; after Aegospotami, he undertook to make peace without loss of honour, and yet it was he who proposed at Sparta that Athens should lose her walls and her fleet; it was he who advocated the proposal of Drakontides for the establishment of the Thirty; and it is this man— twice the enslaver of Athens—whom Eratosthenes glories in having defended! (§§ 62—78.)

This is no season for mercy. The man who condemned, untried, the fathers, sons, brothers of those who now judge him, does not deserve even a trial. His advocates can urge no merits either of his or of their own. His witnesses are mistaken if they think that they can shield from peril of death the men who made it dangerous to attend a burial. They will say that Eratosthenes was the least criminal of the Thirty. Is he to escape because there are twenty-nine greater villains in Greece? (§§ 79—91.)

Lysias now addresses himself, first, to those who remained in Athens during the Anarchy, then to the exiles who returned from the Peiraeus—speaking as if he had before him two definite bodies of men. He reminds each party of their peculiar reasons for hating the Thirty. The ‘men of the city’ should hate that despotism; for it shared with them nothing but its shame, and forced upon them an unholy strife. The ‘men of Peiraeus’ should hate it: it proscribed them, persecuted them, severed them from country and kinsfolk. Had it triumphed, no sanctuary would have protected them, nothing could have saved their children from outrage at home or slavery abroad. But it is needless to speak of what might have been: what has been is too great for words. It can only be felt—felt, with boundless resentment for the shrines which these men desecrated, for the city which they humbled, —for the dead, who are listening now to mark if the judges will avenge them.

‘I will cease to accuse. You have heard, seen, suffered:— you have them:—judge.’ (§§ 92—100.)

The result is unknown. But as the accused had ⁸ evidently strong support, and as Lysias complains of the difficulty which he had experienced in finding witnesses to some of the principal facts, it is probable that the penalty of death, at least, was not inflicted⁹.

The Speech Against Eratosthenes must take the ¹⁰ first place among the extant orations of Lysias. In the two parts into which it naturally falls the speech presents, in perhaps unique combination, two distinct styles of eloquence,—first, the plain earnestness of a private demand for redress—then the lofty vehemence of a political impeachment. The compass of the power shown may best be measured by the two passages which mark its limits —on the one hand, the account of the arrest of Polemarchos, which has almost the flow of Herodotean narrative;—on the other hand, the passionate appeal to the two classes of men who had suffered from the Thirty—worked up with all the resources of a finished rhetoric. As regards the first, what may be called the private, division of the speech, it is very noticeable how little attempt Lysias makes to excite compassion; he contents himself with a bare recital of facts. He relies less on the atrocity of the wrong itself than on its significance as part of that system of organised crime which he sees personified in Eratosthenes. He therefore throws his whole weight upon the second, the public, division of his subject; and here he gives us, first, two political biographies, the lives of Eratosthenes and Theramenes—then, a retrospect of the government to which they belonged. In one sense this speech of Lysias may be compared with that of Demosthenes On the Crown. The question at issue involves a whole chapter of Athenian history, in which both the parties to the case were actors. But there is a difference. Demosthenes, the statesman, reviews the train of events with which he deals from the level of one who has helped to determine their course. Lysias stands on the lower ground of a private person; he sees the events of the Anarchy as they were seen by the masses who suffered, but were powerless to control; he does not discuss two rival lines of policy, but recalls, as a common man, experiences familiar to thousands. It is just because he speaks from among the crowd that he is so successful in denouncing Eratosthenes, and leaves the impression that in his attack upon the worst of close oligarchies he was the spokesman of an entire people¹¹.

VI. 2. Against Agoratos, Or. XIII

2. Against Agoratos. [Or. XIII.]—Agoratos, son of a slave, had gained the Athenian citizenship by pretending to have had a hand in the assassination of Phrynichos in 411; a merit to which, according to his accuser, he had no claim. (§ 76.) For six years afterwards he had lived at Athens, exercising the trade of informer, and laying ‘all conceivable indictments’ ( τὰς ἐξ ἀνθρώπων γραφάς § 73) before the law-courts. He is now charged with having slandered away the lives of several distinguished citizens just before the establishment of the Thirty.

It was in the spring of 404 that Theramenes came back from Sparta with the hard conditions of peace. Athens had been suffering for months the extreme of famine and misery; the mass of citizens were thankful for relief on any terms. But there were still a few men, influential by their position and service, who stood out against the bargain which the oligarchical party were about to strike with Sparta. The oligarchs, impatient to get rid of their opponents, had recourse to the aid of Agoratos. It was arranged that he should himself be charged with plotting to defeat the peace, and should then denounce a certain number of other persons as his accomplices. One Theokritos accused him before the Senate. A party of senators went to the Peiraeus to arrest him. Agoratos, feigning alarm, took sanctuary at the altar in the temple of Artemis at Munychia. Certain citizens who suspected him to be the victim, or the agent, of a plot, gave bail for him, and offered to take him out of Attica to await quieter times. He declined this proposal, and appeared before the Senate to give information. He denounced, first, the men who had bailed him; then several of the Generals and taxiarchs (§ 13), among whom were the General Strombichides, Dionysiodôros (kinsman of the accuser in this case), and probably Eukrates¹² the brother of Nikias; also a number of other citizens. These, with Agoratos himself, were imprisoned; and it was decreed that they should be tried both by the Senate and by a special court of Two Thousand. Immediately afterwards the peace with Sparta was ratified¹³ .

The government of the Thirty having been established, the prisoners were tried; but not by the Two Thousand; only by a new oligarchical Senate. They were all condemned to death, except Agoratos, who was banished. In 404 he joined the democratic exiles at Phylê, and afterwards returned to Athens with them; but appears to have been ill received (§ 77). He is now accused of murder by Dionysios, cousin and brother-in-law to Dionysiodôros.¹⁴

The procedure was not by an indictment before the Areiopagos or the Delphinion, but by an information (endeixis) laid before the archon, followed by a summary arrest (apagogê)—precisely as in the case of the Mitylenean charged with the murder of Herodes, for whom Antiphon wrote a defence; the case was therefore heard by an ordinary court under the presidency of the Eleven. There had, however, been a slight informality. Strictly speaking, endeixis and apagogê were applicable only in cases where the accused had been taken in the act; though, as appears from this and from the Herodes case, the limitation was not always observed. Here the accuser had left out the words ἐπ’ αὐτοφώρῳ in drawing up the indictment; but had been compelled to add them by the Eleven, although in this instance they had no real meaning (§§ 84, 86).¹⁵

The trial took place ‘long after’ the events to which it referred (§ 83); and the condemnation of Menestratos, who himself suffered on the same account ‘long after’ his offence (§ 56), is mentioned as if it was not very recent. At least five or six years, then, must have elapsed since 404 B. C. The speech cannot be placed earlier than 400; probably it may be placed as late as 398¹⁶.¹⁷

The speaker begins by explaining that both on private and on public grounds he is entitled to be the accuser of Agoratos. On private grounds, since Dionysiodôros was his cousin and brother-in-law; on public, because the crime of Agoratos affects the whole State (§§ 1—4).

The narrative of the facts (§§ 5—48) falls into four parts. (i) From the defeat at Aegospotami in 405 to the moment when Agoratos made his accusations, in the spring of 404: §§ 5—34. (ii) The trial and condemnation of the accused: §§ 35—38. (iii) Their last injunctions to their relatives: §§ 39—42. (iv) The sequel of their deaths—the reign of terror, which they had foreseen and endeavoured to avert: §§ 43—48.

The pleas which Agoratos may set up in his defence are next considered. He may deny the fact of having informed; but the decrees of the Senate and of the ekklesia will confute him. He may pretend that he informed in the interest of the State: but the events disprove that. He may say that he was forced to inform; but the circumstances of his arrest show that he did so willingly. He may throw the blame on Menestratos, who also informed. Nay, Menestratos was afterwards a victim of Agoratos, whose turn it is now to suffer himself. Compare the conduct of Agoratos with that of Aristophanes, who died rather than turn accuser (§§ 49—61).

The eminent men whom Agoratos destroyed may be contrasted with himself and with his family. His three brothers have all suffered death for base crimes; he himself obtained the citizenship by pretending to have assassinated Phrynichos. It is a dilemma; let him suffer for the murder or for the fraud (§§ 62—76).

He will perhaps claim sympathy as having joined the exiles at Phylê and returned with them. The fact was that, when he appeared at Phylê, they would have put him to death, had not the general Anytos interfered; and when, at the entry into Athens, he presumed to bear arms in the procession, Aesimos, its leader, came and snatched away his shield (§§ 77—82).

Or he will raise technical objections. He will say that the time which has elapsed ought to exempt him from penalties; but there is no statute of limitations ( προθεσμία, § 83) here. Or he will say that the words ἐπ’ αὐτοφώρῳ were omitted in the indictment; which is much the same thing as arguing that he is guilty, indeed, but was not caught in guilt. Or he will plead the Amnesty. This is in itself a confession. Moreover, the Amnesty was a covenant between the oligarchs in the city (§§ 83—90) and the democrats of the Peiraeus: it has no force as between two democrats.

The judges, the whole people, are bound by the solemn injunctions of the dead. To acquit Agoratos would be to confirm the sentence by which they perished. A democratic court must not be in unison with the courts of the Tyrants. By condemning Agoratos, the judges will mark the difference between them; will avenge their friends; and will have done right in the sight of all men (§§ 91—97).

In historical interest the speech Against Agoratos stands next, perhaps, to the speech Against Eratosthenes; but it is conceived in a totally different ¹⁸ spirit. No transition from a private to a public character, like that which is so marked in the other case, occurs here. From beginning to end the accuser of Agoratos confines himself to his special task, that of demanding vengeance for the death of his kinsman. Much of the general history of the time is necessarily introduced, and the speaker of course avails himself of the great advantage which he possesses in being able to represent the slander of Agoratos as treason to the State. But there is no such large view of a whole period as is given in the speech Against Eratosthenes. The historical references are scattered, not concentrated, and, instead of forming pictures, are only picturesque; individual interests are in the foreground throughout. Lysias accusing Eratosthenes hardly attempts to excite a personal sympathy; he relies rather on the hatefulness of that system of crime to which this particular crime belonged; Dionysios accusing Agoratos describes the wives, mothers, sisters of the condemned visiting them in prison, and receiving their last messages of vengeance—a passage which strikingly resembles in conception and tone the prison-scene in the speech of Andokides On the Mysteries. The arrangement of the topics here, as usually with Lysias when he takes pains, is clear and good; though perhaps the speaker tries to make too many distinct points towards the end, and thereby rather impairs the breadth and strength of his argument. This is particularly the case in §§ 70—90; where the sophism about the Amnesty—that it was not meant to hold good between two men of the same party—is a curious exception to the usual tact of Lysias in argument.

VI 3. On the Death of Eratosthenes, Or. I

3. On the Death of Eratosthenes. [Or. I.]— Euphilêtos, an Athenian citizen of the humbler sort, had slain one Eratosthenes of Oea (

Οἴηθεν,

§ 16 ), whom he had taken in adultery with his wife. He is now prosecuted for murder by the relatives of Eratosthenes; and pleads in his defence the law which allowed the husband, in such cases, to kill the adulterer¹⁹ ( §§ 30, 31 ). As the law was clearly against them, the accusers were driven to allege that Euphilêtos had himself decoyed Eratosthenes into his house (§ 30); and that the real motive of the homicide was fear, enmity, or cupidity. This line of argument may have had some plausibility if Athenian husbands were in the habit of compromising such cases²⁰. But the assertion of the accusers would be hard to prove; and Euphilêtos speaks throughout like a man confident of a verdict.

The cause would be tried, probably by heliastic judges²¹, at the Delphinion, the court for cases in which an admitted homicide was defended as justifiable. There is nothing to indicate the date.²²

The accused asks the judges to imagine themselves in his place: all Greece, he says, would recognise the justice of his act. He had no motive for it but the dishonour done to his wife, his children and himself ( §§ 1—4 ). Then comes the narrative ( §§ 5—28 ), followed by the citation of witnesses and laws ( §§ 29—36 ). He meets the suggestions of the defendants; as (i) that Eratosthenes was decoyed into the house, §§ 37—42 ; (ii) that the homicide was prompted by a former enmity, or by cupidity, §§ 43—46 . In any of these cases, he would not have slain him before witnesses. The decision of the judges will have a good effect if it accords with the laws; if it does not, then these laws should be annulled, since citizens are only entrapped ( ἐνεδρεύονται) by them. His life and property are at risk because he trusted to the laws of the city ( §§ 47—50 ).

The first part ²³ of this speech ( §§ 5—28 ) is curious as a vivid picture—vivid with almost Aristophanic life—of a small Athenian household²⁴; especially as illustrating the position of a married woman of the lower class. The husband says that, at first, his wife gave him entire satisfaction as a housekeeper; on his part, he ‘watched her as far as possible, and gave all reasonable attention to the subject;’ at length, however, at her mother's funeral, she for once left the house; and hence the intrigue. Lysias has been clever in making the defence homely and at the same time dignified; Euphilêtos, the plain citizen, feels strong in the law of the city.

VI. 4. Defence Against Simon, Or. III

4. Defence Against Simon. [Or. III.]—The accused, an elderly Athenian of good family and fortune (§§ 4, 47), is accused by one Simon of having wounded him in a quarrel about one Theodotos, a young Plataean. The indictment was for Wounding with Intent ( τραύματος ἐκ προνοίας), a charge which, in this case, seems to have been made merely in the sense of ‘wounding deliberately²⁵.’ But, as the accused justly says, the ‘intent’ to which the law referred was not merely intent to wound, but intent to kill (§§ 40—43). It was for this reason that the Areiopagos had jurisdiction in such cases, as well as in those of actual murder²⁶. The present trial took place before that court (§§ 1, 3); the penalty was banishment (§ 47), and further (as appears from Or. IV. § 18) confiscation ²⁷ of property. The battles of Corinth and of Koroneia had already been fought (§ 45); the speech is therefore later than 394 B. C.²⁸

After observing that Simon ought to be defendant rather than prosecutor, and requesting the indulgence of the court for the weakness which had involved him in so unpleasant a dispute (§§ 1—4), the accused gives his own account of the quarrel between himself and the prosecutor (§§ 5—20). He then refutes the account given by Simon (§§ 21—39). The formula, ‘wounding with intent,’ does not, he says, apply to this case (§§ 41—43). He wishes that he was at liberty to give illustrations of Simon's character [the Areiopagos not allowing the introduction of irrelevant matter]. As it is, he will mention only one fact—that Simon was dismissed from the Athenian army at Corinth (§§ 44, 45). Simon, he concludes, is one of those informers ‘who force their way into our houses, who persecute us, who snatch us by force out of the street.’ He appeals to the services of his ancestors, and to his own; and says that compassion is due to him, not only in the event of being condemned, but for the very fact of having been brought to trial (§§ 46—48).

VI. 5 On Wounding with Intent, Or. IV

5. On Wounding with Intent. [Or. IV.]—The first part of this speech has been lost²⁹, and with it the original title. It is a defence before the Areiopagos on a charge of wounding with murderous intent in a quarrel for the possession of a slave girl. The defendant asserted that the slave was the joint property of himself and the accuser; the latter claimed sole ownership (§ 10). The penalty threatening the accused was banishment and confiscation of property (§ 18).

The speech, as now extant, begins at the point where the ³⁰ defendant is answering the assertion that a personal enmity of long standing accounts for the murderous character of the assault. It is not true, the defendant says, that they were at this time enemies; they had been reconciled. He had been called upon to perform a costly leiturgia, and had challenged his present accuser either to undertake it himself or to exchange properties ( ἀντίδοσις); and this had been cited by the accuser in proof of the alleged hostility. But it has been shown that this exchange was never actually made; friends mediated, and the defendant took the leiturgia. The accuser had, indeed, already received some property of his, with a view to the exchange; but had returned it when the reconciliation took place. Another proof is given that they were on good terms. The accuser had been nominated by the defendant as judge of the prizes at the Dionysia. Unfortunately, when lots were drawn, he was not among the judges elected. If he had been, his goodwill to the defendant would have been publicly shown; for he was prepared to give the prize to the defendant's tribe, and left a written memorandum of that resolve³¹ (§§ 1—4).

Assuming, however, that this personal enmity did exist, yet the very circumstances of the assault exclude the idea of premeditation. The accuser had made the utmost of a black eye ( ὑπώπια § 9), and had pretended illness. At the same time he has refused to allow the slave, who was the cause and the eyewitness of the quarrel, to be put to the question (§§ 5—11). After dwelling further on the refusal of this challenge ( πρόκλησις) as presumptive evidence in his own favour (§§ 12—17), the defendant ends by contrasting the gravity of his danger with the worthlessness of its cause, and begs the court not to award so disproportionate a penalty to him, and so excessive a triumph to his unjust accuser (§§ 18—20).³²

This fragment has at least some antiquarian interest. It is curious to find from § 2 that the fact of having offered a man the antidosis could be quoted in court as presumptive evidence of ill-will towards him. The difficult passage in § 3 regarding the appointment of judges at the Dionysia has already been noticed. Section 4 illustrates a point in the peculiar procedure of the Areiopagos—that no witness could be examined who did not swear either to or against the guilt of the accused in regard to the particular facts before the court.³³

Taylor's suspicion that in this piece a sophistic writer has imitated the Defence against Simon seems gratuitous³⁴. If the fragment which has been preserved is neither clear in arrangement nor strong in argument, it has at least the vigorous simplicity by which Lysias knew how to make the appeal of a commonplace man effective without making it rhetorical.

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Sir Richard C. Jebb. London. 1876.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos (English) (The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Jebb, Richard Claverhouse, author. London: Macmillan, 1876.)

Notes on the current edition

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos

1. Form of procedure.

2. The arguments against the hypothesis of an ordinary γραφὴ φόνου are well given by Blass ( Att. Ber. pp. 540—1) Scheibe ( ib) thinks that the trial was ‘fortasse apud heliastas ad Delphinium;’ Rauchenstein apparently ( Introd p. 16) before an ordinary heliastic court. Francken also ( Comment. Lys. p. 79) seems to reject the idea of an accusation at the εὐθῦναι.

3. Xenophon ( Hellen. II. iv. 38 ) mentions the exclusion from the Amnesty of the Thirty, the Eleven, and ‘the Ten who had ruled in the Peiraeus.’ Andokides ( De Myst. § 90) gives the words of the Amnesty: καὶ οὐ μνησικακήσω τῶν πολιτῶν οὐδενί, πλὴν τῶν τριάκοντα καὶ τῶν ἕνδεκα [καὶ τῶν δέκα]· οὐδὲ τούτων ὃς ἂν ἐθέλῃ εὐθύνας διδόναι τῆς ἀρχῆς ἧς ἦρξεν. Francken cannot be right in referring τούτων here to τῶν ἕνδεκα only ( Comment. Lys. p. 79). The words τῶν δέκα are added by Sauppe and Baiter with Schneider and others.

4. Pheidon had been one of the Thirty and also one of the Ten. Eratosthenes had been one of the Thirty, but not one of the Ten. This is clear from §§ 54, 55.

5. The view that Lysias accused Eratosthenes at his εὐθῦναι is taken by Blass ( Att. Ber. p. 540) and by Grote (vol. VIII. p. 402). I have purposely abstained from bringing into the question the fact that Lysias was only an isoteles. On the one hand, as Rauchenstein says, a resident-alien was probably allowed to prosecute personally, instead of being represented by his προστάτης, when the duty of avenging blood came upon him as the nearest relative. On the other hand, it can hardly be doubtful that a resident-alien would, as Blass thinks, have been allowed to prefer an accusation at the euthunae of any official whose acts had touched him: it certainly is not doubtful that such a man as Lysias would have been allowed, under the democracy which he had just helped to restore, to impeach one of the Thirty Tyrants.

6. Date.

7. Analysis.

8. Result of the Trial.

9. Grote vol. VIII. p. 402: Rauchenstein Introd. p. 16: Blass Att. Ber. p. 542. As to the number of men who supported Eratosthenes, see §§ 51, 56, 65, 87, 88, 91. As to the difficulty about witnesses, §§ 46, 47. See Or. x (Against Theomnêstos) § 31, and the remarks on it below.

10. Character of the Speech.

11. Perhaps sceptical criticism has produced no greater marvel than an essay De oratione in Eratosthenem Trigintavirum Lysiae falso tributa, by A. Hecker (progr. Gymn. Leid. a. 1847—8). After proving to his own satisfaction the spuriousness of this speech, the author ends by regretting that he has spent some time in emending the speech Against Agoratos;

‘quam suppositam esse a Graeculo ludimagistro idoneis argumenti sevincam. Antiphonteae omnes et omnes pariter Andocideae orationes spuriae sunt. Quae brevi singula persecuturus sum.’

Literature has lost a curiosity by the non-fulfilment of this promise.

12. Eukrates is not named in this speech; but see § 5 of Or. XVIII., which refers to the confiscation of his property.

13. That, according to Lysias, the informations of Agoratos were made before the acceptance of the peace and the surrender of the city, appears distinctly from § 17, εἵλοντο πρὶν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τὴν περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης γενέσθαι τούτους (the popular leaders) εἰς διαβολὰς καὶ κινδύνους καταστῆσαι. It follows also from § 16.Grote (VIII. p. 320) believes that Lysias has misdated the informations of Agoratos, placing them before the surrender, whereas they were, in fact, given after it. He remarks: (1) That it is difficult to suppose an interval sufficient for these accusations between the return of Theramenes and the ratification of the peace, for which the people were most impatient. (2) That the bailers of Agoratos could not have proposed to convey him away by sea from Munychia, when the harbour was blocked up. (3) That the expression ‘till quieter times’ ( ἕως κατασταίη τὰ πράγματα , ib.) would have been inappropriate at a moment just before the surrender.Now, (1) all that Lysias relates about the informations need not have occupied more than one day; there is room for them, then, between the return of Theramenes and the ratification of the peace (on the day after his return, Xen. Hellen. II. ii. 22 ). Lysias describes the capitulation and entrance of Lysandros into Athens as following immediately on the act of Agoratos, § 34. (2). We do not know how strict the blockade established in November 405 may have been in March 404: the ‘two boats’ may have lain ready at some point in Munychia outside the harbour. (3) The third objection I do not understand. Surely the time just before the surrender—when Athens was full of misery and faction—might be called a troubled time.No doubt Lysias had a motive for placing the informations of Agoratos before the capitulation, and thus representing him as responsible for it. On the other hand, it may be observed that the oligarchs would not have had the same motive for suborning Agoratos when the peace, which gave them the ascendancy, had been ratified.An ingenious attempt has been made (by Christian Renner, Comment. Lysiac. cc. duo, Gottingen 1869) to show that it is consistent with the narrative of Lysias to suppose that the peace had been accepted, and that the popular leaders, when denounced by Agoratos, were only agitating for a revision of it. But the words in § 17 bar this view. Renner can get over them only by supposing them corrupt. He proposes with Frohberg to strike out the words τὴν περὶ τῆς εἰρήνης after ἐκκλησίαν. This is to cut the knot.

14. Mode of procedure.

15. Date.

16. Rauchenstein Introd. p. 55: Blass Att. Ber. p. 557.

17. Analysis.

18. Character of the Speech as compared with Or. XII.

19. Dem. in Aristocr. § 53 ἐάν τις ἀποκτείνῃ ἐν ἄθλοις ἑκών...ἢ ἐπὶ δάμαρτι, κ.τ.λ....τούτων ἕνεκα μὴ φεύγειν κτείναντα.

20. In one instance, at all events, we find that the injured husband λαμβάνει μοιχόν...καὶ εἰς φόβον καταστήσας πράττεται τριάκοντα μνᾶς—not an excessive sum: Dem. in Neaer. § 65. As Blass notices ( Att. Ber. p. 577) this case of Eratosthenes happens to be the only recorded example of that extreme and summary vengeance which the law allowed.

21. After the year of Eukleides, heliastic judges sat at the Palladion: see Isokr. adv. Callim. § 54, Dem. in Neaer. § 90. Probably at the Delphinion also they had taken the place of the Ephetac.

22. Analysis.

23. Social interest of the Speech.

24. The passage §§ 6—18 may be noted as a locus classicus on the architecture of Athenian houses.

25. The τραύματος γραφή seems to have been notorious as an instrument of false accusation. Cf. Dem. adv. Boeot. II. § 32 ἐπιτεμὼν τὴν κεφαλὴν αὑτοῦ τραύματος εἰσ’/ Αρειον πάγον με προσεκαλέσατο, ὡς φυγαδεύσων ἐκ τῆς πόλεως. Aeschines charges Demosthencs with having brought a false γραφή of the same kind against one Demomeles ( De F. L. § 93, in Ctes. § 51); indeed, he says, this was one of his habitual villanies— τὴν μιαρὰν ταύτην κεφαλὴν καὶ ὑπεύθυνον . . . μυριάκις κατατέτμηκε καὶ τούτων μισφοὺς εἴληφε τραύματος ἐκ προνοίας γραφὰς γραφόμενος ( in Ctes. § 212). Compare Lucian Timon § 46 ΓΝΑΘΩΝΙΔΗΣ. τί τοῦτο; παίξις, ὦ Τίμων· μαρτύρομαι. ὦ Ἡράκλεις, ἰοὺ ἰού. προσκαλοῦμαί σε τραύματος ἐς Ἄρειον πάγον.

26. For the law see Dem. in Aristocr. § 22. In [Lys.] in Andoc. § 15 it is loosely said that ‘according to the laws of the Areiopagos’ the penalty was banishment ἄν...τις ἀνδρος σῶμα τρώσῃ κεφαλὴν ἢ πρόσωπον ἢ χεῖρας ἢ πόδας—the mention of the πρόνοια being omitted.

27. Date.

28. Analysis.

29. The loss must have taken place before the Palatine MS. was written. Sauppe ( O. A. p. 73), regarding the speech as complete in its present shape, thinks that it was the last or at least the second (‘epilogus vel deuterologia’) made for the defence. In that case, as Blass says ( Att. Ber. p. 590), the preceding speech or speeches can have contained little more than the narrative; since our speech deals with the proof. Francken ( Comment. Lys. p. 37) and Scheibe (Blass l.c.) agree in thinking the speech imperfect.

30. Analysis.

31. § 3 ἐβουλόμην δ’ ἂν μὴ ἀπολαχεῖν αὐτὸν κριτὴν Διονυσίοις, ἵν’ ὑμῖν φανερὸς ἐγένετο ἐμοὶ διηλλαγμένος, κρίνας τὴν ἐμὴν φυλὴν νικᾶν· νῦν δὲ ἔγραψε μὲν ταῦτα εἰς τὸ γραμματεῖον, ἀπέλαχε δέ:—‘I could have wished that he had not missed the lot to be judge at the Dionysia, as then he would have proved to you that he was reconciled to me, by adjudging the victory to my tribe. As it was, he made a note of it in his tablets, but failed to draw the lot.’The reference is apparently to a private compact between the defendant and the accuser. The judges of the prizes at the Dionysia were nominated by the Senate; the names of all the nominees were put into an urn, and lots woro then drawn (Isokr. Trapez. § 33). The defendant—being at the time a senator—had so nominated the accuser, under a compact that he should award the prize to the chorus furnished by the defendant's tribe. The accuser had registered this compact; but, in the end, his name was not drawn. This is Francken's explanation ( Comment. Lys. p. 38); and no better has been offered. The shock which the candour of the defendant must have given to the Areiopagos is perhaps not a decisive objection.

32. Special points illustrated by the Speech.

33. Taylor's doubt of its genuineness.

34. ‘Multis modis mihi videtur hace declamatiuncula in umbra Scholae μελετᾶσθαι, ad imaginem superioris orationis elaborata, eni deinde ob argumenti affinitatem in scriptis codd., ut fieri solet, perpetuo adhaesit.’ Taylor ap. Reiske Or. Att. v. p. 164. Blass (p. 594) answers some objections raised by Falk to the arrangement of the speech; by Scheibc, to the weakness of the πίστεις and to some points of expression.

Sir Richard C. Jebb The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos 1.10.7