Against Callimachus

But lest it be thought that the reason I am dwelling long on the covenant of Amnesty is merely because it is easy when speaking on that subject to make many just observations, I urge you to remember when you cast your votes only one thing more—that before we entered into those agreements we Athenians were in a state of war, some of us occupying the circle enclosed by the city's walls, others Piraeus after we had captured it,[*](The oligarchs were in power in the city; the democratic party after their occupation of Phyle (the fort on Mt. Parnes in Attica), captured and held Piraeus.) and we hated each other more than we did the enemies bequeathed to us by our ancestors.

But after we came together and exchanged the solemn pledges, we have lived so uprightly and so like citizens of one country that it seemed as if no misfortune had ever befallen us. At that time all looked upon us as the most foolish and ill-fated of mankind; now, however, we are regarded as the happiest and wisest of the Greeks.

Therefore it is incumbent upon us to inflict upon those who dare to violate the covenant, not merely the heavy penalties prescribed by the treaty, but the most extreme, on the ground that these persons are the cause of the greatest evils, especially those who have lived as Callimachus has lived. For during the ten years[*](A reference to the so-called Decelean War (413-404 B.C.) when the Spartans occupied Decelea in Attica.) when the Lacedaemonians warred upon you uninterruptedly, not for one single day's service did he present himself to the generals;

on the contrary, all through that period he continued to evade service and to keep his property in concealment. But when the Thirty came to power, then it was that he sailed back to Athens. And although he professes to be a friend of the people, yet he was so much more eager than anybody else to participate in the oligarchical government that, even though it meant hardship, he saw fit not to depart, but preferred to be besieged in company with those who had injured him rather than to live as a citizen with you, who likewise had been wronged by them.

And he remained as a participant in their government until that day on which you were on the point of attacking the walls of Athens; then he left the city, not because he had come to hate the present regime, but because he was afraid of the danger which threatened, as he later made evident. For when the Lacedaemonians came and the democracy was shut up in the Piraeus,[*](By Pausanias, king of Sparta and his general, Lysander.) again he fled from there and resided among the Boeotians; it is far more fitting, therefore, that his name should be enrolled in the list of the deserters than that he should be called one of the “exiles.”

And although he has proved to be a man of such character by his conduct toward the people who occupied the Piraeus, toward those who remained in the city, and toward the whole state, he is not content to be on equal terms with the others, but seeks to be treated better than you, as if either he alone had suffered injury, or was the best of the citizens, or had met with the gravest misfortunes on your account, or had been the cause of the most numerous benefits to the city.

I could wish that you knew him as well as I do, in order that, instead of commiserating with him over his losses, you might bear him a grudge for what he has left. The fact is, though, that if I should try to tell of all the others who have been the objects of his plots, of the private law-suits in which he has been involved, of the public suits which he has entered, of the persons with whom he has conspired or against whom he has borne false witness, not even twice as much water[*](The time allotted to the litigant for his speech in the Athenian law-courts was regulated by an official water-clock (the klepsydra). One has been found; cf. Hesperia viii., 1939.) as has been allotted me would prove sufficient.

But when you have heard only one of the acts which he has committed you will readily recognize the general run of his villainy. Cratinus once had a dispute over a farm with the brother-in-law of Callimachus. A personal encounter ensued. Having concealed a female slave, they accused Cratinus of having crushed her head, and asserting that she had died as a result of the wound, they brought suit against him in the court of the Palladium[*](The tribunal for cases of unpremeditated homicide; also for trials involving the murder of slaves, resident-aliens, and foreigners. Cf. Aristot. Ath. Pol. 57.3.) on the charge of murder.