The Double Indictment (6-10)

ZEUS The people were still unfamiliar with the teachings of philosophy at that time, and there were few that pursued it, so it was natural that the juries inclined towards Anytus and Meletus. But at present, do not you see how many short cloaks and staves and wallets there are? On all sides there are long beards, and books in the left hand, and everybody preaches in favour of you; the public walks are full of people assembling in companies and in battalions, and there is nobody who does not want to be thought a scion of Virtue. In fact, many, giving up the trades that they had before, rush after the wallet and the cloak, tan their bodies in the sun to Ethiopian hue, make themselves extemporaneous philosophers out of cobblers or carpenters, and go about praising you and your virtue. Consequently, in the words of the proverb, it would be easier for a man to fall in a boat without hitting a plank than for your eye to miss a philosopher wherever it looks.

JUSTICE Yes, but those very men frighten me, Zeus, by quarrelling with each other and showing unfairness even in their discussions of me. It is rumoured, too, that while most of them claim kinship with me in words, when it comes to facts they do not even open their house to me at all, but make it plain that they will lock me out if ever I come to their door ; for they made Injustice their bosom friend long ago.

HERMES Let us set out in this direction, Justice, straight for Sunium, not far from the foot of Hymettus, to the left of Parnes, where you see those two heights[*]; you have probably forgotten the way long since. But why are you crying and taking it hard? Don't be afraid: things are no longer the same in life. All those Scirons and Pinebenders and Busirises and Phalarises whom you used to fear in former days are dead, and now Wisdom and the Academy and the Porch are in full sway, seek for you everywhere, and hold conversations about you, in open-mouthed expectation that, from some quarter or other, you may perhaps come flying down to them once more.

JUSTICE Well, Hermes, you are the only person who can tell me the truth, inasmuch as you associate with them a great deal, passing your days with them in the athletic clubs and in the market-place; for you are the god of the market, as well as being crier in the meetings of the assembly. What sort’of people are they, and is it possible for me to abide among them?

HERMES To be sure; I should not be treating you fairly if I did not tell you, since you are my sister. Most of

But in the course of our talk we are already drawing near to Attica, so let us leave Sunium on our right, and now let us glide down to the Acropolis. Now that we have alighted, you sit down here on the Areopagus somewhere, facing the Pnyx, and wait until I give out the proclamation from Zeus. If I climb the Acropolis it will be easier for me to summon everybody from that point of vantage for the voice.

JUSTICE Don’t go, Hermes, until you have told me who comes here, the person with the horns and the shepherd’s pipe and the hairy legs.

PAN Good day to you, Hermes and Justice.

HERMES The same to you, Pan, most musical and most frolicsome of all satyrs, and at Athens the most bellicose !

PAN What business brought you two here, Hermes ?

HERMES She will tell you the whole story; I am going to the Acropolis, to make my proclamation.

JUSTICE Zeus sent me down, Pan, to empanel juries for the lawsuits. But how do you find things in Athens?

PAN On the whole, I do not get on as well as I ought here—much worse than I expected; and yet I dis-