112
and to such a stage of brutishness did they bring us all that, whereas in former times, because of the prosperity which prevailed, every one of us found many to sympathize with him even in trifling reverses, yet under the rule of these men, because of the multitude of our own calamities, we ceased feeling pity for each other, since there was no man to whom they allowed enough of respite so that he could share another’s burdens.
113
For what man dwelt beyond their reach? What man was so far removed from public life that he was not forced into close touch with the disasters into which such creatures plunged us? But in the face of all this, these men, who brought their own cities to such a pitch of anarchy, do not blush to make unjust charges against our city; nay, to crown their other effronteries, they even have the audacity to talk of the private and public suits which were once tried in Athens, when they themselves put to death without trial more menIn Athens 1500, according to Isoc. 7.67; Isoc. 20.11. in the space of three months than Athens tried during the whole period of her supremacy.
114
And of their banishments, their civil strife, their subversion of laws, their political revolutions, their atrocities upon children, their insults to women, their pillage of estates, who could tell the tale? I can only say this much of the whole business—the severities under our administration could have been readily brought to an end by a single vote of the people,Such a decree of the Ecclesia as was passed in 378 B.C., when the new confederacy was formed, absolving the allies from paying tribute and from the practice of trying their cases in Athens. These had been the causes of friction. See Isoc. 12.63. while the murders and acts of violence under their regime are beyond any power to remedy.
