On the False Embassy

What follows, men of Athens? Such being the facts, will you, the descendants of these men, some of whom are still living, be content that Epicrates, the champion of democracy, the hero of the march from Peiraeus, should have been degraded and punished; that more recently Thrasybulus, a son of Thrasybulus the great democrat, who restored free government from Phyle, should have paid a fine of ten talents that even a descendant of Harmodius and of the greatest of all your benefactors, the men to whom, in requital of their glorious deeds, you have allotted by statute a share of your libations and drink-offerings in every temple and at every public service, whom, in hymns and in worship, you treat as the equals of gods and demigods,—

will you be content that all these men should have been subjected to the inexorable penalty of law; that they should find no succor in mercy or compassion, in weeping children bearing honored names, or in any other plea? And then, when you have in your power a son of Atrometus the dominie, and of Glaucothea, the fuglewoman of those bacchanalian routs for which another priestess[*](According to Ulpian her name was Nino and her crime was mixing a love-potion.) suffered death, will you release the son of such parents, a man who has never been of the slightest use to the commonwealth, neither he, nor his father, nor any member of his precious family?