Against Meidias (201-205)

Now a man who thinks it degrading to show any fear of you, Athenians, and a dashing thing to snap his fingers at you, does not such a man deserve death ten times over? He really believes that you will have no hold over him. Rich, arrogant, haughty, loud-voiced, violent, shameless, where will you catch him if he gives you the slip now?

But in my opinion, if for nothing else, yet for those harangues that he delivers at every opportunity and for the occasions that he chooses for them, he would deserve the severest penalty. For of course you know that if any welcome news is brought to the city, such as we all rejoice to hear, Meidias has never on any of those occasions been found in the ranks of those who share in the public satisfaction or the public rejoicings;

but if it is something untoward, something that no one else would wish to hear, he is the first to jump up at once and harangue the people, making the utmost of his opportunity and enjoying the silence by which you show your distress at what has happened. Why, that is the sort of men you Athenians are. You do not serve abroad; you see no need to pay your property-tax. And then do you wonder that your affairs go wrong? Do you think I am going to pay my property-tax and you spend the money? Do you think I am going to fit out war-galleys and you decline to embark in them?

That is how he insults you, seizing the chance to void the rancor and venom that he secretes in his heart against the masses, as he moves about among you. Now is the chance for you, men of Athens, now when he comes with his humbug and chicanery, with his lamentations, tears and prayers, to throw this answer in his teeth. Yes, and that is the sort of man you are, Meidias. You are a bully; you cannot keep your hands to yourself. Then can you wonder if your evil deeds bring you to an evil end? Do you think that we shall submit to you and you shall go on beating us? That we shall acquit you and you shall never desist?

As for the speakers who will support him, their object, I swear, is not so much to oblige him as to insult me, owing to the personal quarrel which that man there[*] says that I have with himself. He insists that it is so, whether I admit it or not; but he is wrong. Too much success is apt sometimes to make people overbearing. For when I, after all that I have suffered, do not admit that he is my enemy, while he will not accept my disclaimer, but even confronts me in another’s quarrel, and is prepared now to mount the platform and demand that I shall even forfeit my claim to that protection which the laws afford to all, is it not clear that he has grown overbearing and is too powerful to suit the interests of each one of us?