Harmonides (6-10)

You then, they would say, were not a mere actor, but a poet of the noblest sentiments and a lawgiver; but when this fig appeared you were shown up a monkey, with philosophy on your lips, ‘hiding one thing in your heart, while saying another.’ [*] So it may be fairly said against you that what you say and the matters for which you ask to be praised ‘wet your lips, but leave the palate dry.’ [*] So retribution has followed close. You rushed headlong to attack human needs, then a little later forswore your freedom in what was almost a public proclamation. If Adrasteia [*] stood behind you when your accusations were winning your reputation, she must have laughed, knowing as a god would what a turncoat you were going to be; you couldn’t have spat in your bosom, [*] she would think, before thinking fit to accuse those who were driven to do this sort of thing by fortune’s fickleness.

Suppose for argument’s sake that after Aeschines had made his accusation against Timarchus he had been caught doing just the same, in the very act, don’t you think those who saw it would have roared with laughter at this fellow who censured Timarchus for the sins of youth, and committed the same crimes himself in his old age? [*] In short you seem just like that drug-seller who was advertising cough medicine and promising immediate relief to sufferers, while he himself was racked by a cough as he talked for all to see.”

This and a lot more of the sort could be said by a prosecutor like you in a case with such scope and countless opportunities for criticism. But now I am wondering to what defence I should turn. Is it best to play the coward, turn my back, and admit my wrong-doing, taking refuge in the universal defence, Fortune, Fate, Destiny? Shall I ask pardon from my critics, who know that we have no control and are driven by a mightier power, especially one of those just mentioned? Shall I say we do not wish it, but have no responsibility at all for what we say or do? Surely this is a very vulgar excuse, and, my good friend, you would not let me use any such defence or call in Homer as an advocate and chant his:

“No man, say I, ever escaped Fate.” [*]

“Spun the thread at his birth, the day his mother

bore him.” [*]

But if I abandoned this argument as quite unconvincing and said this that I was not hooked by money or any such expectation when I formed the present association, but that I admired my patron’s intelligence and courage and elevation of thought and wished to share the fortunes of such a man, I fear that besides the accusation being brought against me I

Well then, if I am pleased with neither line of defence, am I driven to agree or to confess that I have no honourable argument? Perhaps I have still one anchor left on board, to complain of old age and disease and poverty as well, which persuades one to do or endure anything to get away from it. In such a case perhaps it is not untimely to call on Euripides’ Medea to come and say in my defence those iambic lines, parodied a little:

“I know the evil that I’m going to do,

But poverty is stronger than my plans.” [*]