Book 1
6
‘Well, what did I do then? I summoned the men implicated, gave them a hearing, brought in the evidence, and clearly convicted them on each count; and then, as they themselves no longer denied the charge, I avenged myself, angry in the main, not because they had plotted against me, but because they had not let me abide by the plan which I had made in the beginning. From that time I have continued to protect myself and to punish those of my opponents who plot against me at any time. And then men charge me with cruelty, forgetting to consider which of us s began it! Suppressing all that -went before, which caused them to be punished, they always censured the punishments in themselves and their seeming cruelty. It is as if someone among yourselves should see a temple-robber thrown over the cliff, and should not take into account what he had dared to do—how he had entered the temple at night, had pulled down the offerings, and had laid hands on the image—but should accuse you of great barbarity on the ground that you, who call yourselves Greeks and priests, countenanced the infliction of - such a punishment on a fellow-Greek hard by the temple (for they say that the cliff is not very far from the city). Why, you yourselves will laugh at any man who makes this charge against you, I am sure; and the rest of the world will praise you for your severity towards the impious.
