Against Aristogeiton I (56-60)

All this is bad enough, Heaven knows; but you shall hear another dreadful performance. On the occasion when he broke prison and ran away, he visited a certain woman named Zobia, with whom he had probably cohabited at one time. She kept him in safe hiding during the first few days, when the police were searching and advertising for him, and then she gave him eight drachmas journey-money and a tunic and a cloak and packed him off to Megara.

When this same woman, who had been such a benefactress, complained to him, seeing that he was giving himself airs and making a great show here among you, and when she reminded him of her services and claimed some recompense, on the first occasion he cuffed her and threatened her and turned her out of his house. But when she persisted and, woman-like, went about among her acquaintance with complaints of his conduct, he seized her with his own hands and dragged her off to the auction-room at the aliens’ registry, and if her tax had not happened to be duly paid, she would have been put up for sale, thanks to this man who owed his safety to her.

To prove the truth of this statement, please call the man who buried the defendant’s father without payment, and also the arbitrator in the action which the witness here in court brought against him for the sale of his sister, and produce the indictment. But first of all please summon the protector of Zobia, who gave him shelter, and the sale-commissioners before whom he carried her. You yourselves just now expressed your indignation at his accusing the man who had contributed towards his defence. Athenians, he is an unclean beast; his touch is pollution. Read the depositions.

The depositions are read

What penalty is adequate for a man who has committed such offences? What retribution does he deserve? To my thinking death is too light a sentence.

One more instance, then, of his private crimes, and I will pass over the rest. Before Aristogeiton was released, a man of Tanagra was thrown into the prison until he could find bail. Aristogeiton accosts him and, while chatting on some topic or other, filches the pocket-book that he had on him; and when the man charged him with the theft and made a to-do about it, saying that no one else could have taken it, he so far forgot all decency that he tried to strike him.