Against Meidias

In the name of all the gods, Athenians, I ask you to reflect and calculate in your own minds how much more reason I had to be angry when I suffered so at the hands of Meidias, than Euaeon when he killed Boeotus. Euaeon was struck by an acquaintance, who was drunk at the time, in the presence of six or seven witnesses, who were also acquaintances and might be depended upon to denounce the one for his offence and commend the other if he had patiently restrained his feelings after such an affront, especially as Euaeon had gone to sup at a house which he need never have entered at all.

But I was assaulted by a personal enemy early in the day, when he was sober, prompted by insolence, not by wine, in the presence of many foreigners as well as citizens, and above all in a temple which I was strictly obliged to enter by virtue of my office. And, Athenians, I consider that I was prudent, or rather happily inspired, when I submitted at the time and was not impelled to any irremediable action; though I fully sympathize with Euaeon and anyone else who, when provoked, takes the law into his own hands.

My views were, I think, shared at that trial by many of the jury; for I am told that he was only condemned by a single vote, and yet he had no recourse to tears or supplications and made no effort, small or great, to win the favour of his judges. Let us assume, then, that the judges who condemned him did so, not because he retaliated, but because he did it in such a way as to kill the aggressor, while the judges who acquitted him allowed even this licence of revenge to a man who had suffered an outrage on his person.