26
On the whole, there is no need of words; you will at once discover what sort of man he is from his marks. But in spite of that I will myself unveil the man to you and show him up more plainly. All that the cursed scoundrel did while he was a private citizen I intend to pass over; but when he had leagued himself with the boldest men and had got together a bodyguard, and so had set himself over the city and had become tyrant, he not only put to death more than ten thousand people without a hearing but confiscated their properties in each case; and after he had made himself extremely rich, he did not leave a single form of excess untried, but practised every sort of savagery and high-handedness upon his miserable fellow-citizens, ravishing maids, corrupting boys, and running amuck in every way among his subjects. And for his superciliousness, his pride, and his haughtiness toward all he met you never could exact from him a fitting penalty. It would have been less dangerous to look steadily at the sun than at this man. Then, too, in the matter of punishments who could describe his cruel inventiveness? Why, he did not even let his closest kin alone! And that all this is not mere empty calumny against him you will soon find out if you summon up the men he murdered—but no, they are here unsummoned, as you see, and press about him and throttle him. All these men, Rhadamanthus, have met their death at the scoundrel’s hands, some of them entrapped in plots because of pretty wives, others because they were angry on account of sons outrageously kidnapped, others because they were rich, and others because they were honest and decent ind did not like his actions in the least.
27
What have you to say to this, you villain?
27
The murders which he speaks of I did commit, but in all the rest of it—the intrigues, the outrages against boys and the injuries to girls—in all that Cyniscus has maligned me.
27
Then for that too, Rhadamanthus, I shall produce you witnesses.
27
Whom do you mean?
