279
Whereas, says the old decree, certain of them are convicted of making untruthful reports to the Council. Why, these men are convicted of making untruthful reports even to the Assembly. On what evidence?—you remember that brilliant quibble. On the evidence of facts: the report was exactly contradicted by the event. It goes on: and of sending untruthful dispatches. So did they. And of bearing false witness against allies, and of taking bribes. For bearing false witness read utterly destroying—a vastly greater injury. But as to their having taken bribes, we should still, if they denied it, have to make the charge good; but since they admit it, surely there should have been a summary arrest and punishment.By the legal process known as ἀπαγωγή.
280
What follows, men of Athens? Such being the facts, will you, the descendants of these men, some of whom are still living, be content that Epicrates, the champion of democracy, the hero of the march from Peiraeus, should have been degraded and punished; that more recently Thrasybulus, a son of Thrasybulus the great democrat, who restored free government from Phyle, should have paid a fine of ten talents that even a descendant of Harmodius and of the greatest of all your benefactors, the men to whom, in requital of their glorious deeds, you have allotted by statute a share of your libations and drink-offerings in every temple and at every public service, whom, in hymns and in worship, you treat as the equals of gods and demigods,—
