Thesauros Literature Oratory κατὰ Μειδίου περὶ τοῦ Κονδύλου

κατὰ Μειδίου περὶ τοῦ Κονδύλου

κατὰ Μειδίου περὶ τοῦ Κονδύλου Demosthenes
217 Never! Such a result entails all that is most disgraceful. I do not deserve this at your hands, Athenians. How should I, when I am bringing to justice a fellow who is as violent a bully as he is reputed to be, who has offended against decency at a public festival, and who has made not only you, but all the Greeks who were visiting the city, witnesses of his brutality? The people heard what he had done. What was the result? They voted him guilty and passed him on to your court.
218 So it is impossible that your decision should be concealed or hushed up, or that the question should not be asked, How did you judge the case when it was brought before you? No; if you punish him, you will be thought men of discretion and honor and haters of iniquity; but if you acquit him, you will seem to have capitulated to some other motive. For this is not a political issue, nor does it resemble the case of Aristophon, who stopped the plaint against him by restoring the crowns. This case arises from the insolence of Meidias and from the impossibility of his undoing any of his acts. Is it then better, in view of the past, to punish him now or the next time he offends? Now is the time, I think, because the trial is a public one, even as the offences for which he is being tried were public.
219 Furthermore, it was not I alone, men of Athens, that he then, in his intention, struck and insulted, when he acted as he did, but all who may be supposed less able than I am to obtain satisfaction for themselves. If you were not all beaten, if you were not all insulted while acting as choir-masters, you realize of course that you cannot all be choir-masters at the same time, and that no one could possibly assault all of you at once with a single fist.

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