Against Meidias (11-15)

You will observe, gentlemen of the jury, that whereas in the first law the public plaint may be lodged against those who violate the laws of the festival, in the latter law you have sanctioned plaints against those who exact money from defaulting debtors or seize any property or use violence to that end. So far from thinking it right that any man’s person should be outraged on those days, or that any equipment should be damaged which a citizen provides out of his private means for a public service, you have even conceded that what by law and by verdict belongs to the winner of a suit should remain the property of the loser and original owner, at any rate during the festival.

You therefore, Athenians, have all risen to such a height of benevolence and piety that during those days you have even suspended the exaction of penalties due for past offences; but Meidias, as I shall prove, chose those very same days to commit offences that call for the severest punishment. I intend to describe in order each outrage of which I have been the victim, before I speak of the blows in which his attacks culminated, for there is not a single one of those attacks for which he will not be shown to have deserved death.

Two years ago the tribe of Pandionis had failed to appoint a chorus-master, and when the Assembly met at which the law directs the Archons to assign the flute-players by lot to the choruses, there was a heated discussion and mutual recrimination between the Archon and the overseers of the tribe.[*] Thereupon I came forward and volunteered to act as chorus-master, and at the drawing of the lots I was fortunate enough to get first choice of a flute-player.

You, Athenians, all of you, welcomed with the utmost cordiality both these incidents—my voluntary offer and my stroke of luck; and your cheers and applause expressed your approval of my conduct and your sympathy with my good fortune. But there seems to have been one solitary exception, Meidias, who in his chagrin kept up a constant fire of insults, trifling or serious, during the whole period of my service.

Now the trouble that he caused by opposing the exemption of our chorus from military service, or by putting himself forward as overseer at the Dionysia and demanding election, these and other similar annoyances I will pass over in silence; for I am not unaware that although to myself, the victim of his persecution and insolence, each of these acts caused as much irritation as any really serious offence, yet to the rest of you, who were not directly concerned, these things in themselves would hardly seem to call for litigation. I shall therefore confine myself to what will excite indignation in all of you alike.