36
I have been told that Meidias goes about inquiring and collecting examples of people who have at any time been assaulted, and that these people are going to give evidence and describe their experiences to you; for instance, men of Athens, the Chairman for the day who is said to have been struck by Polyzelus in your court, the judge who was lately struck when trying to rescue the flute-girl, and similar cases. He imagines that if he can point to many other victims of serious assault, you will be less indignant at the assault committed upon me!
37
But it seems to me, Athenians, that it would be reasonable for you to do just the reverse, since your duty is to be solicitous for the common good of all. For who of you is unaware that the reason for the frequency of these assaults is the failure to punish the offenders, and that the only way to prevent such assaults in the future is adequately to punish every offender who is caught? Therefore, if it is to your interest to deter others, those cases are an additional reason for punishing Meidias, and punishing him the more severely in proportion to their number and their seriousness; but if you want to encourage him and everybody, you must let him off.
38
Then again we shall find that he has not the same claim to consideration as these others. For in the first case the man who struck the judge had three excuses: he was drunk, he was in love, and he did not know what he was doing in the darkness and the night. Polyzelus again explained that owing to his ungovernable temper he had lost his head when he committed the offence; there was no hostility behind the act and no intention to insult. But Meidias cannot plead any of these excuses, for he was my enemy, and he assaulted me willfully by daylight, and not only on that, but on every occasion he has shown a deliberate intention to insult me.
