9
I will now show that, unless I was mad, I must have thought the danger in which I now stand far greater, instead of less, than the danger to be expected from the indictment. If I was convicted on the indictment, I knew that I should be stripped of my property; but I did not lose my life or civic rights. I should still have been alive, still left to enjoy those rights and even though I should have had to obtain a loan of money from my friends,ἔρανον συλλέγειν. Cf. infra 12, ἐρανίζειν. The reference in both cases is to a sum of money advanced without interest by friends who each contributed a portion. ἔρανος later came to have the more specialized sense of a club formed for the purpose of lending money without interest to any of its members. Each member paid a subscription (also called ἔρανος); and such clubs often acquired landed property. They grew political in character as time went on. my fate would not have been the worst possible. On the other hand, if I am found guilty today and put to death, my children will inherit from me an insufferable disgrace; if instead I go into exile, I shall become a beggar in a strange land, an old man without a country.
10
Thus not one of the charges brought against me has any foundation. But even if the probabilities, as distinct from the facts, point to me as the murderer, it is acquittal that I deserve from you far more than anything else; since first, it is clear that if I struck back, it was only because I was being deeply wronged; had that not been so, it would never have been thought likely that I was the murderer; and secondly, it is the murderers, not those accused of the murder, whom it is your duty to convict.i.e. (1) Even if he can be proved guilty, there are extenuating circumstances which will make it impossible to condemn him. (2) But he cannot be proved guilty in any case.
