In Defence of Euxenippus (11-15)

You also maintain that no one should even help him or be his advocate, and you exhort the jury to refuse a hearing to those who come up to speak. And yet, of the many good institutions of the city, what is better or more democratic[*] than our custom, when some private person is facing the danger of a trial and cannot conduct his own defence, of allowing any citizen who wishes to come forward to help him and give the jury a fair statement of the case?

You will claim, no doubt, that you have never worked on such a principle. Yet when you were prosecuted by Alexander of Oeon,[*] you asked for ten advocates from the tribe Aegeis, and I was one of them, chosen by yourself. You also summoned men from other tribes into the court to help you. But why should I mention other instances? Take your handling of the present trial. Did you not make as many accusations as you wished? Did you not call Lycurgus to join you in the prosecution, a speaker who is the equal of any in the city and who has the reputation among these gentlemen of being sound and honorable?

If you then, as a defendant, may summon advocates, or as a prosecutor may bring in co-prosecutors—you who are not merely capable of speaking for yourself but well able to give a whole city trouble—is Euxenippus, because he is not a professional speaker and is now advanced in years, even to be denied the help of friends and relatives, on pain of their being abused by you?

Yes; for in the words of your indictment, his conduct has been scandalous and deserves the death penalty. Gentlemen of the jury, will you please review it and scrutinize it point by point? The people ordered Euxenippus, as one of three, to lie down in the temple; and he tells us that he fell asleep and had a dream which he reported to them. If you assumed, Polyeuctus, that this was true and that he reported to the people what he actually saw in his sleep, why is he to blame for notifying the Athenians of the commands which the god had been giving him?

If on the other hand, as you now maintain, you thought that he misrepresented the god and, out of partiality for certain persons, had made a false report to the people, rather than propose a decree disputing the dream you ought to have sent to Delphi, as the previous speaker said, and inquired the truth from the god. But instead of doing that, you proposed a decree, entirely conceived by yourself,[*] against two tribes, a measure not only most unjust but self-contradictory also. This was what caused your conviction for illegal proposals. It was not the fault of Euxenippus.