Decree As soon as this decree had been passed, Menestratus turned informer, and added some more names of citizens to those already deposed. The Thirty, of course, let him off as they did Agoratus here, accepting his report as true: but you long afterwards had him before you in court as an actual murderer, and justly condemned him to death; you handed him over to the executioner, and he suffered death on the plank. This mode of execution, formerly understood to be cudgelling to death, seems to have been something similar to crucifixion. See Gernet et Bizos, ad loc. Yet, if that man was put to death, surely Agoratus will be put to death with justice; for since he deposed against Menestratus he is responsible for his death, while, as to those who were deposed against by Menestratus, who is more responsible than the man who placed him under the necessity of such a step? And his behavior was, I consider, quite unlike that of Aristophanes of Cholleis, A district on the south side of Mt. Hymettus. The point in what follows is that even his surety Aristophanes, when faced with death as a result of Agoratus’s treachery, refused to save himself by denouncing good citizens. who went surety for him at that time, provided the vessels at Munichia, and was ready to accompany him on the voyage. Thus, so far as it lay with him, you were saved, and then you would neither have destroyed any Athenian nor have brought your own self into such serious dangers. But no: you not only had the face to depose against your own deliverer, but by making your deposition you sent both him and your other sureties to their death. Some, indeed, desired that Aristophanes should be put to the torture, as one who was not of pure Athenian stock, and they prevailed on the people to pass the following decree. Decree Well, after that the persons who then had control of affairs came to Aristophanes and appealed to him to save himself by a denunciation, and not to run the risk of the extreme penalty by standing his trial on the count of alien birth. But he said— Never! Such was his loyalty both to the men who had been imprisoned and to the Athenian people that he chose to suffer death rather than denounce and destroy anyone unjustly.