The Tyrannicide (16-17)

Well, if blood you must have, that too is not wanting; my hands are not unstained; the glorious deed is accomplished; the youthful tyrant, the terror of all men, his father’s sole security and protection, the equivalent of many bodyguards, is slain in the prime of his strength. Have I not earned my reward? Am I to have no credit for all that is done? What if I had killed one of his guards, some underling, some favourite domestic?. Would it not have been thought a great thing, to go up and dispatch the tyrant’s friend within his own walls, in the midst of his. armed attendants? But who was my victim? The tyrant’s son, himself a more grievous tyrant than his father, more cruel in his punishments, more violent in his excesses; a pitiless master; one, above all, whose succession to the supreme power promised a long continuance of our miseries. Shall I concede that this is the sum of my achievements?

Shall we put it, that the tyrant has escaped, and lives? Still I claim my recompense. What say you, gentlemen? do you withhold it? The son, perhaps, caused you no uneasiness; he was no despot, no grievous oppressor?

And now for the final stroke. All that my adversary demands of me, I have performed; and that in the most effectual manner. I slew the tyrant when I slew his son; slew him not with a single blow—he could have asked no easier expiation of his guilt than that—but with prolonged torment. I showed him his beloved lying in the dust, in pitiable case, weltering in blood. And what if he were a villain? he was still his son, still the old man’s