When I was appointed Choregus for the Thargelia,The χορηγία was one of the λητουργίαι, or public duties, imposed upon the richer citizens by the state. A Choregus had to equip and train a chorus for one of the annual festivals, in this case the Thargelia, held in honor of Apollo and celebrated on the 7th of Thargelion (May 1st) by a competition between choirs of boys selected from the ten tribes, which were grouped in pairs for the purpose. PantaclesProbably this is the Pantacles who appears as a lyric poet in a choregic inscription of the period ( I.G. i(2). 771). Aristophanes also refers jokingly to a Pantacles who got into difficulties with his helmet at the Panatheniac procession on one occasion (Aristoph. Frogs 1036: first staged in 405); but it is not certain that he was the poet. falling to me as poet and the Cecropid as the tribe that went with mine [;that is to say the Erechtheid];,See critical note 6. I discharged my office as efficiently and as scrupulously as I was able. I began by fitting out a training-room in the most suitable part of my house, the same that I had used when Choregus at the Dionysia.i.e. the Great Dionysia (τὰ ἐν ἄστει Διονύσια), celebrated every March with a procession, choruses of boys, and tragic and comic performances. The speaker had undertaken the training of a chorus for the festival in some previous year. Next, I recruited the best chorus that I could, without indicting a single fine, without extorting a single pledge,The Choregus was empowered to inflict fines upon parents who refused to allow their sons to perform without good reason. The pledges mentioned would presumably be exacted from parents who did proffer some excuse. If the excuse proved unsatisfactory, they would forfeit their money. and without making a single enemy. Just as though nothing could have been more satisfactory or better suited to both parties, I on my side would make my demand or request, while the parents on theirs would send their sons along without demur, nay, readily.

For a while after the arrival of the boys I had no time to look after them in person, as I happened to be engaged in suits against Aristion and Philinus,For embezzelment of public monies. See Antiph. 6.35. and was anxious to lose no time after the impeachment in sustaining my charges in a just and proper manner before the Council and the general public. Being thus occupied myself, I arranged that the needs of the chorus should be attended to by Phanostratus, a member of the same deme as my accusers here and a relative of my own (he is my son-in-law); and I told him to perform the task with all possible care.

Besides Phanostratus I appointed two others. The first, Ameinias, whom I thought a trustworthy man, belonged to the Erechtheid tribe and had been officially chosen by it to recruit and supervise its choruses at the various festivals; while the second, . . ., regularly recruited the choruses of the Cecropid tribe, to which he belonged, in the same way. There was yet a fourth, Philippus, whose duty it was to purchase or spend whatever the poet or any of the other three told him. Thus I ensured that the boys should receive every attention and lack nothing owing to my own preoccupation.

Such were my arrangements as Choregus. If I am lying as regards any of them in order to exonerate myself, my accuser is at liberty to refute me on any point he likes in his second speech. For this is how it is, gentlemen: many of the spectators here present are perfectly familiar with every one of these facts, the voice of the officer who administered the oath is in their ears, and they are giving my defence their close attention; I would like them to feel that I am respecting that oath, and that if I persuade you to acquit me, it was by telling the truth that I did so.

In the first place, then, I will prove to you that I did not tell the boy to drink the poison, compel him to drink it, give it to him to drink, or even witness him drinking it. And I am not insisting on these facts in order to incriminate someone else once I have cleared myself; no indeed—unless that someone else be Fortune; and this is not the first time, I imagine, that she has caused a man’s death. Fortune neither I nor any other could prevent from fulfilling her destined part in the life of each of us. . . .Some such phrase as καὶ μοι μάρτυρας τούτων κάλει seems to have been lost. Cf. Antiph. 5.61.