Witnesses Well, it may be, gentlemen, that he will make no defence on these points, but will state again to you what he had the boldness to say before the arbitrator At the preliminary trial, which was subject to appeal to a higher court. See Introduction, p. 196, note b. —that it is not a use of a forbidden word to say that someone has killed his father, since the law does not prohibit that, but does disallow the use of the word murderer. For my part, gentlemen, I hold that your concern is not with mere words but with their meaning, and that you are all aware that those who have killed someone are murderers, and that those who are murderers have killed someone. For it was too much of a task for the lawgiver to write all the words that have the same effect; but by mentioning one he showed his meaning in regard to them all. For I presume, Theomnestus, you would not go so far, while expecting to get satisfaction from a man who called you a father-beater or a mother-beater, as to consider that he should go unpunished for saying that you struck your male or your female parent because he had spoken no forbidden word! And I should be glad if you would tell me this, since of this affair you are a past master, both in action and in speech: if a man said that you had cast your shield (in the terms of the law it stands,— if anyone asserts that a man has thrown it away, he shall be liable to penalty ), would you not prosecute him? Would you be content, if someone said you had cast your shield, to make nothing of it, because casting and throwing away are not the same thing? Nay, if you were one of the Eleven, Magistrates who had powers of summary arrest and judgement in capital and other serious cases, and also the charge of prisons and executions. you would refuse to accept a prisoner arrested on the charge of having pulled off the accuser’s cloak or stripped him of his shirt: by that same rule, you would rather let him go, because he was not called a clothes-stealer! Or if somebody were seized for the abduction of a child, you would declare him to be no kidnapper, since your contention will be about words, and you will have no thought to spare for deeds,—the objects for which words are everywhere made!