Against Meidias

The brutality and insolence with which Meidias treats everyone alike are, I suppose, as well known to you, gentlemen of the jury, as to all other citizens. For myself, I have simply taken the course which anyone of you would have adopted, had he been the victim of a similar outrage. I lodged a plaint in the Assembly against him as an offender in connection with the festival, not only for his assault on my person at the Dionysia, but for many other acts of violence during the whole period when I served as chorus-master.

But when the whole people, acting honorably and rightly, evinced such anger, such exasperation, such deep concern at the wrongs which they knew I had suffered, that, in spite of the frantic efforts of the defendant and a few supporters, they were deaf to their arguments, shut their eyes to their wealth and their promises, and condemned him by an unanimous show of hands, thereupon, gentlemen of the jury, many citizens, including some of you who are here in court, came to me and demanded and even implored that I should take the further step of bringing Meidias under your jurisdiction; and they did so, I think, for two reasons, men of Athens, because, so help me heaven! they thought that my own wrongs were serious, and they also wished to punish Meidias for conduct which they had witnessed on other occasions, as a scoundrel and a ruffian who could no longer be tolerated.

This being so, I have in your interests taken all due precautions, and now that the case is before the court, I am here, as you see, to accuse him, having refused large sums of money, men of Athens, which I might have accepted on condition of dropping the prosecution, and having had to steel myself against many appeals and favorable offers-yes, and even menaces.