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As it is, however, think of the crowning feat itself. What this man requires of me I accomplished in the best possible way. I killed the tyrant by killing someone else, not directly nor at a single blow, which would have been his fondest prayer after misdeeds so monstrous. No, first I tortured him with profound grief, displayed full in his view. all that was dearest to him lying exposed in pitiable case, a son in his youth, wicked, to be sure, but in the fullness of his strength and the image of his sire, befouled with blocd and gore. Those are the wounds of fathers, those the swords of tyrannicides who deal justly, that is the death deserved by savage tyrants, that the requital befitting misdeeds so great. To die forthwith, to know nothing, to see no such spectacle has in it nothing worthy of a tyrant’s punishment.
