3
And our lawgivers regarded the giving of blows as an offense of such gravity that even for abusive language they made a law to the effect that those who used any of the forbidden opprobrious terms should pay a fine of five hundred drachmas. And yet how severe should the penalty be on behalf of those who have actually suffered bodily injury, when you show yourselves so angry for the protection of those who have merely suffered verbal injury?
4
It would be astonishing if, while you judge to be worthy of death those who were guilty of battery under the oligarchy, you shall allow to go unpunished those who, under the democracy, are guilty of the same practices. And yet the latter would justly meet with a more severe punishment; for they reveal more conspicuously their real baseness. This is what I mean: if anyone has the effrontery to transgress the law now, when it is not permissible, what would he have done, I ask you, when the government in power actually was grateful to such malefactors?
5
It may be that Lochites will attempt to belittle the importance of the affair, and ridiculing my accusation will say that I suffered no injury from his blows and that I am unduly exaggerating the gravity of what occurred. My reply to this is, that if no assault and battery had been connected with the affair, I should never have come before you; but as it is, it is not because of the mere injury inflicted by his blows that I am seeking satisfaction from him, but for the humiliation and the indignity;
6
and it is that sort of thing which free men should especially resent and for which they should obtain the greatest requital. I observe that you, when you find anyone guilty of the robbery of a temple or of theft, do not assess the fine according to the value of what is stolen, but that you condemn all alike to death, and that you consider it just that thosewho attempt to commit the same crimes should pay the same penalty.For the same argument cf. Lyc. 1.65-66.
