The Tyrannicide (10-11)

This man, however, opposes my plea, and says that I am acting unreasonably in desiring to be honoured and to receive the gift, since I am not a tyrant-slayer, and have not accomplished anything in the eyes of the law; that my achievement is in some respect insufficient for claiming the reward. I ask him, therefore: “What more do you demand of me? Did I not form the purpose? Did I not climb the hill? DidI not slay? Did I not bring liberty? Does anyone issue orders? Does anyone give commands? Does any lord and master utter threats? Did any of the malefactors escape me? Youcannot say so. No, everything is full of peace, we have all our laws, liberty is manifest, democracy is made safe, marriages are free from outrage, boys are free from fear, maidens are secure, and the city is celebrating its common good fortune. Who, then, is responsible for it all? Who stopped all that and caused all this? If there is anyone who deserves to be honoured in preference to me, I yield the guerdon, I resign the

gift. But if I alone accomplished it all, making the venture, incurring the risks, going up to the citadel, taking life, inflicting punishment, wreaking vengeance upon them through one another, why do you misrepresent my achievements? Why, pray, do you make the people ungrateful towards me?”

“Because you did not slay the tyrant himself; and the law bestows the reward upon the slayer of a tyrant!” Is there any difference, tell me, between slaying him and causing his death? For my part I think there is none. All that the lawgiver had in view was simply liberty, democracy, freedom from dire ills. He bestowed honour upon this, he considered this worthy of compensation; and you cannot say that it has come about otherwise than through me. For if I caused a death which made it impossible for that man to live, I myself accomplished his slaying. The deed was mine, the hand was his. Then quibble no longer about the manner of his end; do not enquire how he died, but whether he no longer lives, whether his no longer living is due to me. Otherwise, it seems to me that you will be likely to carry your enquiry still further, to the point of carping at your benefactors if one of them should do the killing with a stone or a staff or in some other way, and not with a sword.

What if I had starved the tyrant out of his hold and thus occasioned the necessity of his death? Would you in that case require me to have killed him with my own hand, or say that I failed in any respect of satisfying the law, even though the malefactor had been done to death more cruelly? Enquire into one thing only, demand this alone, disturb yourself about this alone, whether any one of the villains is left, any

expectation of fearfulness, any reminder of our woes. If everything is uncontaminated and peaceful, only a cheat would wish to utilise the manner of accomplishing what has been done in order to take away the gratuity for the hard-won results.