115
Forget that I, the speaker, am Apollodorus, and that those who will support and plead for the defendant are citizens of Athens; but consider that the laws and Neaera here are contending in a suit regarding the life which she has led. And when you take up the accusation, listen to the laws themselves, which are the foundation of your civic life, and in accordance with which you have sworn to cast your votes, in order that you may hear what they ordain and in what way the defendants have transgressed them; and when you are concerned with the defense, bear in mind the charges which the laws prefer and the proofs offered by the testimony given; and with a glance at the woman’s appearance, consider this and this only—whether she, being Neaera, has done these things.
116
It is worth your while, men of Athens, to consider this also—that you punished Archias, who had been hierophant,The high-priest of the temple at Eleusis. when he was convicted in court of impiety and of offering sacrifice contrary to the rites handed down by our fathers. Among the charges brought against him was, that at the feast of the harvestLiterally, the feast of the threshing-floor. This was celebrated in the month Poseideon (the latter half of December and the prior half of January). he sacrificed on the altar in the court at Eleusis a victim brought by the courtesan Sinop, although it was not lawful to offer victims on that day, and the sacrifice was not his to perform, but the priestess’.
