Against Meidias (61-65)

Then is not this, gentlemen of the jury, a shocking and intolerable position? On the one hand, chorus-masters, who think that such a course might bring them victory and who have in many cases spent all their substance on their public services, have never dared to lay hands even on one whom the law permits them to touch, but show such caution, such piety, such moderation that, in spite of their expenditure and their eager competition, they restrain themselves and respect your wishes and your zeal for the festival. Meidias, on the other hand, a private individual who has been put to no expense, just because he has fallen foul of a man whom he hates—a man, remember, who is spending his money as chorus-master and who has full rights of citizenship—insults him and strikes him and cares nothing for the festival, for the laws, for your opinion, or for the god’s honor.

Now although men have quarrelled often enough, whether on private or on public grounds, no one has ever been so lost to shame as to venture on such conduct as this. Yet it is said that the famous Iphicrates once had a serious quarrel with Diocles of the Pitthean deme, and, to make matters worse, Iphicrates’ brother Teisias happened to be a chorus-master in competition with Diocles. Iphicrates was a wealthy man with many friends and had a high opinion of himself, as a man would naturally have who had earned so many honors and distinctions at your hands;

but Iphicrates never went under cover of night to the goldsmiths’ shops, he never ripped up the costumes intended for the festival, he never bribed the instructor and hindered the training of the chorus, he never played any of the tricks that Meidias repeatedly practised. No, he submitted to the laws and to the wishes of his fellow-citizens, and patiently witnessed the victory and the crowning of his enemy. And he was right; for he felt that such submission was due to the constitution under which he himself had enjoyed such prosperity.

Take another instance. We all know that Philostratus of Colonus was one of the accusers when Chabrias[*] was tried for his life on charges relating to Oropus, and that he showed himself the bitterest of them all, and that afterwards he won the prize at the Dionysia with a chorus of boys. Yet Chabrias neither struck him nor snatched the crown off his head nor in any way intruded where he had no right.

I could mention many others who on various grounds have quarrelled with their neighbors, but I have never seen or heard of anyone who carried his insolence so far as to behave like this. And I am quite sure that no one here can recall any case where a man, involved in a public or private dispute, has taken his stand beside the umpires while they were being named, or dictated the oath when they were being sworn, or paraded his hostility on any such occasion.