Against Theomnestus 1

Lysias

Lysias. Lamb, W.R.M., translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1930.

And I should be glad if you would tell me this, since of this affair you are a past master, both in action and in speech: if a man said that you had cast your shield (in the terms of the law it stands,—

if anyone asserts that a man has thrown it away, he shall be liable to penalty

), would you not prosecute him? Would you be content, if someone said you had cast your shield, to make nothing of it, because casting and throwing away are not the same thing?

Nay, if you were one of the Eleven,[*](Magistrates who had powers of summary arrest and judgement in capital and other serious cases, and also the charge of prisons and executions.) you would refuse to accept a prisoner arrested on the charge of having pulled off the accuser’s cloak or stripped him of his shirt: by that same rule, you would rather let him go, because he was not called a clothes-stealer! Or if somebody were seized for the abduction of a child, you would declare him to be no kidnapper, since your contention will be about words, and you will have no thought to spare for deeds,—the objects for which words are everywhere made!

Then, again, consider this, gentlemen,—for I believe that this man, from indolence and enervation, has not even gone up to attend the Areopagus[*](The speaker suggests that Theomnestus’s ignorance shows that he has never attended a sitting of the Areopagus, the most august tribunal of Athens.): you all know that in that place, when they try cases of murder, they do not use this term in making the sworn statements, but the one which was used for slandering me; the prosecutor swears that the other party has killed, and the defendant that he has not killed.

Well now, it would be absurd to acquit the doer of the deed when he declared he was a murderer, on the ground that the prosecutor deposed on oath that the defendant killed. And is not this the same thing as what this man’s plea will amount to? Why, you have taken proceedings yourself against Lysitheus for slander, because he said that you had cast your shield: yet there is nothing in the terms of the law about casting, whereas, if anyone says, that a man has thrown away his shield, it imposes a penalty of five hundred drachmae.[*](About 330 pounds.)

How monstrous it is, then, that when you have to avenge yourself on your enemies for slander you take the laws in the sense that I do now, but when you slander another in defiance of the laws you claim to escape punishment! Tell me, are you so clever that you are able to turn the laws about to suit your pleasure, or so powerful that you suppose that the people whom you have wronged will never get their revenge?

And then, are you not ashamed of such a senseless vagary as to presume on advantages due to you, not for any services done to the State, but for your unpunished offences? Please read me the law.

LawWell, gentlemen, I think you have all perceived that my statement is correct, whereas this man is so stupid that he cannot understand a word that is said. So I would like to avail myself of some other laws for his instruction on these points, in the hope that even now, on the dais,[*](There were separate raised seats for the prosecutor and the defendant.) he may learn a lesson, and may henceforward cease from his vexatious proceedings against us. Please read me those ancient laws of Solon.

Law

He shall have his foot confined in the stocks for five days, if the court shall make such addition to the sentence.

The stocks there mentioned, Theomnestus, are what we now call confinement in the wood. So if a person confined should on his release accuse the Eleven, at their public examination, of having him confined, not in the stocks, but in the wood, they would take him for an idiot, would they not? Read another law.

Law

He shall vow by Apollo and give security. If he dreads the course of justice, let him flee.

Here to vow is to swear, and flee is what we now call run away.

Whosoever debars with his door, when the thief is within,

—Here to debar is taken to be shut out; no dispute, now, on that score!

Money shall be placed out at whatever rate the lender may choose.

Placed out here, my fine fellow, is not a case of placing in the balance, but of drawing interest to such amount as one may choose. Once more, read the final clause of this same law.

All women who ply about overtly,

and

for hurt to a varlet the redress shall be double.

Pay attention: overtly is openly, ply about is walk about, and a varlet is a servant.

We have many other instances of the sort, gentlemen. But if he is not a numskull, I suppose he has realized that things are the same now as they were of old, but that in some cases we do not use the same terms now as we did formerly. And he will show as much, for he will leave the dais and depart in silence.