“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.