Against Meidias (86-90)

But finding that they resented the offer and that he could persuade neither Archons nor arbitrator, he threatened them and blackguarded them and went off and—what do you think he did? Just observe his malignity. He appealed against the arbitration but omitted the oath, thus allowing the verdict against him to be made absolute, and he was recorded as unsworn. Then, wishing to conceal his real object, he waited for the last day[*] for appeal against the arbitrators, which falls in Thargelion or Scirophorion, a day on which some of the arbitrators turned up but others did not;

he induced the presiding arbitrator to put it to the vote contrary to all the laws, because Meidias had not appended the name of a single witness to the summons; he denounces Strato in his absence and in the absence of witnesses, and gets him struck off the roll of arbitrators and disfranchised. And so a citizen of Athens, because Meidias lost his suit by default, has been deprived of all his civic rights, and has been irrevocably disfranchised; and it is unsafe for him to bring an action against Meidias when wronged, or to act as arbitrator for him, or even, it seems, to walk the same street with him.

Now you must consider the transaction from this point of view. Estimate what loss Meidias must have suffered before he could plan such a dire revenge against a fellow-citizen; and if it was something really terrible and overwhelming, he may be forgiven, but if it was nothing of the sort, mark the insolent brutality with which he treats all whom he comes across. Well, what loss has he suffered? He was cast, you reply, in a big lawsuit, so big that he has lost all his property.

But the lawsuit only involved a thousand drachmas. True, you will say; but the galling thing is to be made to pay unfairly, and it was the unfairness of it that caused him to let the day of payment pass unnoticed.[*] But he noticed his mistake the same day, which is the strongest possible proof that Strato had done him no wrong; and he has not yet paid a single drachma. But of that later.

But of course he could have moved for a fresh trial on the ground of nullity, and so made me the object of his litigation as at the first. But no; that was not his game. To save him from defending a suit in which the penalty was fixed by law at ten minas—the suit in which he neglected to apppear—to save him from paying the penalty if guilty or if innocent, a citizen of Athens must needs be disfranchised, and must obtain neither pardon nor right of defence nor any sort of equitable treatment, privileges extended even to those whose guilt is established.