“Last of all Medea is pictured aflame with
jealousy, looking askance at her two boys with a
terrible purpose in her mind—indeed, she already
has her sword—while the poor children sit there
laughing, unsuspicious of the future, although they
see the sword in her hands.

 

“Do you not see, gentlemen of the jury, how
all these things attract the hearer and turn him away
to look, leaving the speaker stranded? My purpose
in describing them was not that you might think
my opponent bold and daring for voluntarily attacking a task sp difficult, and so pronounce against him,
dislike him and leave him floundering, but that on
the contrary you might support him and do your
best to close your eyes and listen to what he says,
taking into consideration the hardness of the thing.
Even under these circumstances, when he has you



 

as supporters, not judges, it will be just barely possible for him to avoid being thought altogether unworthy of the splendour of the hall. Do not be
surprised that I make this request in behalf of an
adversary, for on account of my fondness for the hall
I should like anyone who may speak in it, no matter
who he is, to be successful.”

 

 If this piece had not come down to us among the works of
rime nobody would ever have thought of attributing it
to him.