Against Aristogeiton I (61-65)

But the Tanagran, a fresh-caught fish, was getting the better of the defendant, who was thoroughly pickled, having been long in jail. So when it came to this, he swallows the other man’s nose. Then the unfortunate victim of this outrage abandoned the search for his pocket-book, which was afterwards found in a chest of which the defendant possessed the key. After that the inmates of the prison passed a resolution not to share fire or light, food or drink with him, not to receive anything from him, not to give him anything.

To prove the truth of my statements, please call the man whose nose this monster bit off and swallowed.

The witness is called

What a fine performance for your popular orator! What a privilege to hear words of wisdom from a man with such a record as this! Now read also the precious resolution that was passed about him.

The resolution is read

Are you not ashamed then, men of Athens, if the men who had been thrown into prison for villainy and vice thought him so much more villainous than them selves that they forbade all intercourse with him, while you are ready to admit him to intercourse with yourselves, though the laws have placed him outside the pale of the constitution? What did you find to commend in his life or conduct? Which of all his actions has failed to move your indignation? Is he not impious, blood-thirsty, unclean, and a black mailer?

And yet, in spite of his performances and his character, he misses no opportunity in the Assembly of bellowing, I, only I, am your sincere well-wisher. All these others are in a cabal. You are betrayed. My patriotism is all you have left. I should like to examine the source and origin of this great and wonderful patriotism of his, so that, if it is as he says, you may trust it and benefit by it; but if not, that you may be on your guard.

Because you condemned his father to death and sold his mother when she was found guilty of defrauding her emancipator, do you suppose that that makes him well-disposed to you? By Zeus and all the gods, that is absurd. For if he is well-disposed towards father and mother, and so observes the great law of nature, which is laid down alike for man and beast, that all should love their parents,