On the False Embassy

Antipater and Parmenio, though they were in the service of a hard taskmaster, and though they were not likely to fall in with you again, nevertheless claimed exemption from serving as the agents of your beguilement; and yet citizens of Athens, the appointed envoys of the freest of all cities, men who must needs encounter you and look you in the face, who must live with you all the rest of their life, who would have to render you a strict account of their actions, accepted a commission to beguile you! Could any men be more wicked or more lost to all sense of shame?

To show you that this man is already accursed by you, and that religion and piety forbid you to acquit one who has been guilty of such falsehoods,—recite the curse.[*](Every meeting of the Assembly and of the Council opened with a form of prayer, which included a curse on the enemies of the state and was recited by the marshal (κῆρυξ) at the dictation of an under-clerk. The curse has nowhere been preserved, but a parody will be found in Aristoph. Thes. 331 ff.) Take and read it from the statute: here it is.

(The Statutory Commination is read)

This imprecation, men of Athens, is pronounced, as the law directs, by the marshal on your behalf at every meeting of the Assembly, and again before the Council at all their sessions. The defendant cannot say that he is not familiar with it, for, when acting as clerk to the Assembly and as an officer of the Council, he used to dictate the statute to the marshal.