Against Leocrates (90-94)

Yet he contended (and perhaps he will say this to you now also) that he would not have faced this trial if he had been conscious of committing a crime like this. As if all thieves and temple-robbers did not use this argument! It is an argument which goes to prove their shamelessness rather than the fact of their innocence. That is not the point at issue; we need the assurance that he did not sail, that he did not leave the city or settle at Megara.

These are the facts by which the truth can be established. As for his appearance in court: surely some god brought him specially for punishment, so that, after shirking an honorable danger, he might meet a death of disgrace and shame and place himself at the mercy of the men he betrayed. If misfortune befalls him in some other place it is hardly clear if this is the crime for which he is being punished. But here, among the men whom he betrayed, it is obvious that his own transgressions of the law have brought upon him this reward.

For the first step taken by the gods in the case of wicked men is to unhinge their reason; and personally I value as the utterance of an oracle these lines, composed by ancient poets and handed down to posterity[*]:

When gods in anger seek a mortal’s harm,

First they deprive him of his sanity,

And fashion of his mind a baser instrument,

That he may have no knowledge when he errs.

Who does not know the fate of Callistratus,[*] which the older among you remember and the younger have heard recounted, the man condemned to death by the city? How he fled and later, hearing from the god at Delphi that if he returned to Athens he would have fair treatment by the laws, came back and taking refuge at the altar of the twelve gods was none the less put to death by the state, and rightly so, for fair treatment by the laws is, in the case of wrongdoers, punishment. And thus the god too acted rightly in allowing those who had been wronged to punish the offender. For it would be an unseemly thing if revelations made to good men were the same as those vouchsafed to malefactors.

It is my belief, gentlemen, that the guidance of the gods presides over all human affairs and more especially, as is to be expected, over our duty towards our parents, towards the dead and towards the gods themselves. For in our dealings with those to whom we owe our being, at whose hands we have enjoyed the greatest benefits, it is the utmost sacrilege that we should fail, not merely to do our duty, but even to dedicate our lives to their service.