Against Conon

Well then, if people break into houses and beat those who come in their way, do you suppose they would scruple to swear falsely on a scrap of paper in the interest of one another—these men who are partners in such great and such reckless malignity and villainy and impudence and outrage? For I certainly think that all these terms fit the deeds they are in the habit of doing. And yet there are other deeds of theirs more dreadful even than these, though I should be unable to find out all who have suffered from them.

The thing, however, which is the most impudent of all that he is going to do, as I hear, I think it better to warn you of in advance. For they say that he will bring his children, and, placing them by his side, will swear by them, imprecating some dread and awful curses of such a nature that a person who heard them and reported them to me was amazed. Now, men of the jury, there is no way of withstanding such audacity; for, I take it, the most honorable men and those who would be the last to tell a falsehood themselves, are most apt to be deceived by such people—not but that they ought to look at their lives and characters before believing them.

The contempt, however, which this fellow feels for all sacred things I must tell you about; for I have been forced to make inquiry. For I hear, then, men of the jury, that a certain Bacchius, who was condemned to death in your court, and Aristocrates, the man with the bad eyes, and certain others of the same stamp, and with them this man Conon, were intimates when they were youths, and bore the nickname Triballi[*](The Triballi were a wild Thracian people. Many parallels for the use of the name to denote a club of lawless youths at Athens might be cited. Sandys refers to the Mohock club of eighteenth century London.); and that these men used to devour the food set out for Hecatê[*](The witch-goddess worshipped at cross roads. Portions of victims which had served for purification were set out for her. To take and eat this food might connote extreme poverty, but suggested also an utter disregard for sacred things.) and to gather up on each occasion for their dinner with one another the testicles of the pigs which are offered for purification when the assembly convenes,[*](Young pigs were sacrificed in a ceremonial purification of the place of meeting before the people entered the ἐκκλησία(the popular assembly).) and that they thought less of swearing and perjuring themselves than of anything else in the world.

Surely Conon, a man of that sort, is not to be believed on oath; far from it indeed. No; the man who would not swear by any object which your custom does not recognize even an oath which he intended to observe, and would not even think of doing so by the lives of his children, but would suffer anything rather than that; and who, if forced to swear, will take only a customary oath, imprecating destruction upon himself, his race, and his house, is more to be believed than one who swears by his children or is ready to pass through fire.[*](The speaker is plainly contrasting his own caution in taking an oath with the recklessness shown by the defendant, but the difficulty of the passage is only partially removed by the transposition mentioned in the critical note. As to the concluding phrase, it is doubtful if an ordeal by fire is alluded to, although suggestive parallels are found in Soph. Ant. 264 and Aristoph. Lys.133) I, then, who on every account am more worthy to be believed than you, Conon, offered to take the oath here cited,[*](Cited, that is, in the following challenge.) not that through readiness to do anything whatsoever I might avoid paying the penalty for crimes which I had committed, as is the case with you, but in the interest of truth, and in order that I might not be subjected to further outrage, and as one who will not allow his case to be lost through your perjury.

(To the clerk.) Read the challenge.

The Challenge