On the Mysteries (133-142)

I will tell you the reason for this change of front. Last year and the year before our honest Agyrrhius here was chief contractor for the two per cent customs duties.[*] He farmed them for thirty talents, and the friends he meets under the poplar[*] all took shares with him. You know what they are like; it is my belief that they meet there for a double purpose: to be paid for not raising the bidding, and to take shares in taxes which have been knocked down cheap.

After making a profit of six talents, they saw what a gold-mine the business was; so they combined, gave rival bidders a percentage, and again offered thirty talents. There was no competition; so I went before the Council and outbid them, until I purchased the rights for thirty-six talents. I had ousted them. I then furnished you with sureties, collected the tax, and settled with the state. I did not lose by it, as my partners and I actually made a small profit. At the same time I stopped Agyrrhius and his friends from sharing six talents which belonged to you.

They saw this themselves, and discussed the situation. This fellow will not take any of the public money himself, they argued, and he will not let us take any either. He will be on the watch and stop our sharing what belongs to the state; and furthermore, if he catches any of us acting dishonestly, he will bring him into the public courts and ruin him. He must be got rid of at all costs.

The prosecution were bound to behave thus, gentlemen; but you must do the opposite: for I should be happy to see you with as many men as possible like myself and to see my accusers stamped out of existence, or at least confronted by those who will not countenance their activities. Such men should show themselves staunch and impartial champions of your interests, and they will be able to serve you well, if they are willing to do so. I for one promise you either to put a stop to the practices of the prosecution and render them better citizens, or to bring such of them as are guilty of criminal behaviour into court and have them punished.

The prosecution have also found grounds for attacking me in the fact that I am a merchant who owns ships. We are asked to believe that the only object of the gods in saving me from the dangers of the sea was, apparently, to let Cephisius put an end to me when I reached Athens. No, gentlemen. I for one cannot believe that if the gods considered me guilty of an offence against them, they would have been disposed to spare me when they had me in a situation of the utmost peril—for when is man in greater peril than on a winter sea-passage? Are we to suppose that the gods had my person at their mercy on just such a voyage, that they had my life and my goods in their power, and that in spite of it they kept me safe?

Why, could they not have caused even my corpse to be denied due burial? Furthermore, it was war-time; the sea was infested with triremes and pirates, who took many a traveller prisoner, and after robbing him of his all, sent him to end his days in slavery. And there were foreign shores on which many a traveller had been wrecked, to be put to death after meeting with shameful indignities and maltreatment.

Is it conceivable that the gods saved me from perils of that nature, only to let themselves be championed by Cephisius, the biggest scoundrel in Athens, whose citizen he claims to be when he is nothing of the kind, and whom every one of you sitting in this court knows too well to trust with any thing belonging to him? No, gentlemen; to my mind the dangers of a trial like the present are to be regarded as the work of man, and the dangers of the sea as the work of God. So if we must perforce speculate about the gods, I for one am sure that they would be moved to the deepest wrath and indignation to see those whom they had themselves preserved brought to destruction by mortal men.

There is yet another thing worth your consideration, gentlemen. At the moment the whole of Greece thinks that you have shown the greatest generosity and wisdom in devoting yourselves, not to revenge, but to the preservation of your city and the reuniting of its citizens. Many before now have suffered no less than we; but it is very rightly recognized that the peaceable settlement of differences requires generosity and self-control. Now it is acknowledged on all sides, by friend and foe alike, that you possess those gifts. So do not change your ways: do not hasten to rob Athens of the glory which she has gained thereby, or allow it to be supposed that you authorized your decree more by chance than by intention.

I beg you one and all, then, to hold towards me the feelings which you hold towards my ancestors, so that I may have the opportunity of imitating them. They rank, remember, among the most tireless and the greatest benefactors of our city; and foremost among the many motives which inspired them came devotion to your welfare and the hope that if they or any of their children were ever in danger or distress, they would find protection in your sympathy. You have good reason, indeed, for remembering them;

for from the heroic deeds of your own forefathers Athens as a whole received inestimable benefit. After the loss of our fleet, when there was a general desire to cripple Athens forever, the Spartans, although our enemies at the time, decided to spare her because of the valiant exploits of those heroes who had led the whole of Greece to freedom.[*]