And now I want your attention, gentlemen: I want you to cast your minds back; for I shall not use witnesses alone to prove the facts to which I am now coming; your own knowledge of how the prosecution have acted will itself show you at once that I am telling the truth. To begin with, they complain of the Basileus and attribute his refusal to register their charge to activities of mine.

That complaint, however, will serve merely to damage their case by suggesting that their statements in general are untrue; for after registering the action, the Basileus was obliged to hold three preliminary inquiries in the course of the three months following, only bringing the case into court during the fourth—as he has done today. Yet only two months of office remained to him, Thargelion and Scirophorion.The dates are roughly as given in the Introduction. The Βασιλεύς went out of office on the 21st June: Philocrates attempted to register his charge in the last week of April. Thargelion and Scirophorion were the last two months of the Attic year. It would thus clearly have been impossible for him to bring the case into court during his own period of office; and he is not allowed to hand on an action for murder to his successor; such a thing has never been done by any Basileus in this country. So, as it was a case which he could neither bring into court nor hand on to his successor, he did not see why he should break your laws by registering it.

There is, indeed, one very striking indication that he did not rob the prosecution of their rights: whereas Philocrates yonder tormented other magistrates who had to render account of their officeThe εὔθυναι of a magistrate consisted of public examination of his accounts and general conduct at the end of his period of office. There was a corresponding δοκιμασία, or preliminary investigation of his fitness, before his installation. with vexatious complaints, he failed to come forward with any grievance when this particular Basileus, whose conduct, we are told, had been so outrageously high handed, was rendering account of his. What clearer indication could I present to you that Philocrates had suffered no injury from either myself or him?

Moreover, after the present Basileus had come into office, there were thirty clear days from the first of Hecatombaeon onwards,Hecatombaeon was the first month of the official Attic year; it extended from 22nd June to 21st July. Metageitnion followed it. on any of which they could have registered their charge, had they wanted to; yet they did not do so. Similarly, they could have registered it any day they liked from the first of Metageitnion onwards. But even then they did not do so: they let twenty days of this second month by as well. Thus the total number of days in the present archonship on which they could have registered their charge, but failed to do so, was over fifty.The words over fifty look like a rhetorical exaggeration. For the bearing of this and the following section on the date of the speech, see Introduction.

Ordinarily, anyone who has not time enough under one archon registers his charge as soon as he can under the next. But the prosecution, who were perfectly familiar with the laws concerned and could see that I was a member of the Council and used the Council-chamber —why, in that very chamber itself stands a shrine of Zeus the Councillor and Athena the Councillor, where members offer prayers as they enter; and I was one of those members: I did as they did: in their company I entered all our other sanctuaries: I offered sacrifices and prayers on behalf of this city: nay more, I acted as a Prytanis for the whole of the first Prytany save two daysThe βουλή was divided into ten sections, each representing a tribe. Each section took it in turn to act as presidents (πρυτάνεις) for a period known as a πρυτανεία(one tenth of the year) at meetings of both the βουλή and the ἐκκλησία. The πρυτάνεις themselves were under the presidency of one of their number known as an ἐπιστάτης who was selected by lot. It was he who put motions to the vote in the Assembly. The Choregus was clearly ἐπιστάτης during his Prytany.: I was to be seen sacrificing and making offerings on behalf of our sovereign people: I was to be seen putting motions to the vote: I was to be seen voicing my opinion on the most momentous, the most vital public questions.