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.
 
I remember, moreover, this statement in the laws
(unless, by reason of our protracted slavery, I have
forgotten what is said in them), that there are two
sorts of responsibility for manslaughter, and if,
without taking life himself or doing the deed with
his own hand, a man has necessitated and given rise
to the killing, the law requires that in this case
too he himself receive the same punishment—quite
justly, for it was unwilling to be worsted by his
deed through his immunity. It would be irrelevant, therefore, to enquire into the manner of the
killing. 
Can it, then, be that you think fit to punish as a
murderer one who has taken life in this manner, and
are not willing under any circumstances to acquit
him, yet when a man has conferred a boon upon the
city in the same way, you do not propose to hold him
worthy of the same treatment as your benefactors?
 
For you cannot even say that I did it at haphazard,
and that a result followed which chanced to be beneficial, without my having intended it. What else did
I fear after the stronger was slain, and why did I
leave the sword in my victim if I did not absolutely
prefigure exactly what would come to pass! You
have no answer, unless you maintain that the dead
man was not a tyrant and did not have that

 

name; and that the city would not have been glad
to make many presents on his account if he should
lose his life. But you cannot say so. 
Can it be that, now the tyrant has been slain,
you are going to refuse the reward to the man who
caused his death? What pettiness! Does it concern you how he died, as long as you enjoy your
liberty? Do you demand any greater boon of the
man who gave back your democracy? “But the
law,” you say, “‘scrutinises only the main point
in the facts of the case, ignoring all the incidentals
and raising no further question!” What! was
there not once a man who obtained the guerdon of
a tyrannicide by just driving a tyrant into exile? The allusion is to Harmodius, who slew Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias. 
Quite rightly, too; for he bestowed liberty in
exchange for slavery. But what I have wrought
is not exile, or expectation of a second uprising,
but complete abolition, extinction of the entire
line, extirpation, root and branch, of the whole
menace.
 
Do, in the name of the gods, make a full enquiry,
if you like, from beginning to end, and see whether
anything that affects the law has been left undone,
and whether any qualification is wanting that a
tyrant-slayer ought to have. In the first place, one
must have at the outset a will that is valiant, patriotic,
disposed to run risks for the common weal, and ready
to purchase by its own extinction the deliverance of
the people. Then did I fall short of that, play the
weakling, or, my purpose formed, shrink from any
of the risks that lay ahead? You cannot say so.
Then confine your attention for a moment to this


 

point, and imagine that simply on account of my
willing and planning all this, even if the result had
not been favourable, I presented myself and demanded that in consequence of the intention itself
I should receive a guerdon as a benefactor. Because I myself had not the power and someone
else, coming after me, had slain the tyrant, would
it be unreasonable, tell me, or absurd to give it
me? Above all, if I said: “Gentlemen, I wanted
it, willed it, undertook it, essayed it; simply for my
intention I deserve to be honoured,” what answer
would you have made in that case?