Epichares Against Theocrines, a Criminal Information (56-60)

For surely, Moerocles, we are not now going to exact ten talents from the Melians[*] in accordance with the terms of your decree, because they gave harborage to the pirates, and yet suffer this man to go free who has transgressed both your decree and the laws which maintain our state. And shall we prevent from wrongdoing the islanders, against whom we must man our ships in order to hold them to their duty, but you abominable creatures, upon whom these jurymen should inflict the penalty according to the laws, while they sit right here—shall we let you go? (To the jury.) You will not, at least if you are wise.

(To the clerk.) Read the stelê.[*]

The Stele

Regarding the laws, then, and the case before you I do not know what need there is to say more; for, I take it, you have been adequately informed. It is my purpose, after begging justice at your hands for my father and myself, to come down from the platform and trouble you no further. I felt, men of the jury, that it was my duty to come to my father’s aid, and I thought that this course was just;

so I lodged this criminal information, as I told you at the outset, although I knew well that those who wished to calumniate me would find words which would fling reproach upon my youth, while others would praise me and hold that I was acting wisely in seeking to take vengeance on the enemy of my father. However, I knew that, while the effect on my hearers would be as fortune might determine, I was none the less in duty bound to carry out the command laid upon me by my father, especially as it was a just one.

For when, pray, should I come to his aid? Should it not be now, when the opportunity of avenging him in accordance with the laws is open to me, when I myself share in my father’s misfortune, and he has been left desolate? This is precisely what has now come about. For, in addition to our other misfortunes, men of the jury, this too has befallen us: everybody urges us on, expresses sympathy for what has happened, says that we have been outrageously treated, and that the defendant is liable to the criminal information; yet no one of those who say these things is willing to cooperate with us or declares his readiness openly to incur the enmity of Theocrines. So true is it that with some people the love of right is not strong enough to lead them to speak out frankly.

And, men of the jury, while many misfortunes have befallen us in a short period of time because of this fellow Theocrines, no one of them is more grievous than the present one, that, namely, my father, to whom the wrong was done and who could set forth to you the cruel and illegal acts of Theocrines, must keep silent (for the laws so bid), and I, who am unequal to all these tasks, must I do the talking; and whereas other youths of my age are aided by their fathers, my father now rests his hopes on me.