6
Although it has been proved so clearly and so completely that he killed the dead man, his impudence and shamelessness are such that he is not content with defending his own act of wickedness: he actually accuses us, who are seeking expiation of the defilement which rests upon him, of acting like unscrupulous scoundrels.
7
Assertions as outrageous as this, or even more so, befit one guilty of such a crime as he. We, on our side, have clearly established how the death took place: we have shown that there are no doubts about the blow which caused it: and we have proved that the law fixes the guilt of the murder upon him who gave that blow. So in the name of the victim we charge you to appease the wrath of the spirits of vengeance by putting the defendant to death, and thereby cleanse the whole city of its defilement.
Second Speech for the Defense
1
The defendant, not because he has judged himself guilty, but because he was alarmed by the vehemence the prosecution, has withdrawn.A touch of realism. It was recognized that the defendant in a δίκη φόνου had the right of withdrawing into exile half-way through the trial, if he saw no hope of an acquittal. Cf. Herodes, Introduction. As to us, his friends, we are discharging our sacred duty to him more fitly by aiding him while he is alive than by aiding him after he is dead. Admittedly, he himself would have pleaded his own case best; but since the present course appeared the safer, it remains for us, to whom his loss would be a very bitter grief, to defend him.
