Concerning the Team of Horses (41-45)

Thus it is not only from his services to you, but also from what he suffered on your account, that you may easily recognize his loyalty. For it is self-evident that it was the people he was aiding, that he desired the same form of government as yourselves, that he suffered at the hands of the same persons, that he was unfortunate when the state was unfortunate, that he considered the same persons as you his enemies and friends, that in every way he exposed himself to danger either at your hands, or on your account,

or on your behalf, or in partnership with you, being as a citizen quite unlike Charicles,[*] my opponent’s brother-in-law, who chose to be a slave to the enemy, yet claimed the right to rule his fellow-citizens; who, when in exile, was inactive, but on his return was ever injuring the city. And yet how could one prove himself to be a baser friend or a viler enemy?

And then do you, Teisias, his brother-in-law and a member of the Council in the time of the Thirty Tyrants, have the hardihood to rake up old grudges against those of the other side, and are you not ashamed to be violating the terms of the amnesty which permits you to reside in the city, nor do you even reflect that, whenever the decision shall be made to exact punishment for past crimes, it is you who are menaced by danger more speedy and greater than mine?

For surely they will not inflict punishment on me for my father’s acts and at the same time pardon you for the crimes you yourself have committed! No, assuredly it will not be found that your pleas in extenuation are anything like his! For you were not banished from your native land, but on the contrary you were a member of the government; you did not act under compulsion, but you were a willing agent; it was not in self-defense, but on our own initiative, that you were wronging your fellow-citizens, so that it is not fitting that you should be permitted by them even to enter a plea in your defense.

But on the subject of the political misdeeds of Teisias, very likely some day at his trial I shall have the opportunity of speaking at greater length. But as for you, men of the jury, I beg you not to abandon me to my enemies nor entangle me in the net of irremediable misfortunes. For even now I have had sufficient experience of evils, since at my birth I was left an orphan through my father’s exile and my mother’s death; and I was not yet four years of age when I was brought into peril of my life owing to my father’s exile;