4
Malefactors are not likely to have murdered him,Inserted in the Aldine edition to fill a probable lacuna in the manuscript text; some reference to κακοῦργοι is clearly wanted. The term κακοῦργος(cf. Antiph. 2.4.5-6) is a generic one comprising various species of criminal; κλέπται, τοιχωρύχοι, βαλλοντιοτόμοι, etc. The malefactors her referred to are doubtless λωποδύταιfootpads. For a further discussion of κακοῦργοι see Herodes, Introd. as nobody who was exposing his life to a very grave risk would forgo the prize when it was securely within his grasp; and the victims were found still wearing their cloaks. Nor again did anyone in liquor kill him: the murderer’s identity would be known to his boon companions. Nor again was his death the result of a quarrel; they would not have been quarrelling at the dead of night or in a deserted spot. Nor did the criminal strike the dead man when intending to strike someone else; he would not in that case have killed master and slave together.
5
As all grounds for suspecting that the crime was unpremeditated are removed, it is clear from the circumstances of death themselves that the victim was deliberately murdered.Here, as elsewhere in the Tetralogies, the Greek has to be expanded in translating in order to make the connection of thought clear. For an explanation of the words αὐτὸς ὁ θάνατος, circumstances of death see Antiph. 2.2.4 note 1. Now who is more likely to have attacked him than a man who had already suffered cruelly at his hands and who was expecting to suffer more cruelly still? That man is the defendant. He was an old enemy of the other, and indicted him on several serious charges without success.
