12
nursed as he was, in licence, still thought that at the moment of his greatest good fortuneThe battle of Chaeronea, 338 B.C.; the Greeks magnified its importance. Their liberty was lost by degrees, not suddenly. he ought to be seen acting with the greatest humanity and did not venture to cast into chains the men who had faced him in the battle line, against whom he had staked his all, nor demand to know, Whose sons are they and what are their names?An Athenian citizen was identified by three items: his own name, his father’s name, and his deme. For unlike some of your orators, as it appears, he did not consider it would be either just or creditable to take the same action against all, but, taking into his reckoning the additional factor of station in life,Antiatticista cites this passage under ἀξία· ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀξίωμα Bekker, 1. p. 77. 17-18. Ἀξία equals Latin dignitas, the degree of distinction possessed by virtue of birth or achievement or both. he assorted his verdicts accordingly.
13
You, however, though Athenians and partners in a culture which is thought capable of making even stupid people tolerable, in the first place—and of all your actions this is the most heartless—hold the sons in chains as a penalty for offences which certain parties allege against the fatherThe precise accusation is not known; it seems to have been concerned with the administration of the treasury.; in the next place, you claim this action to be equality before the law, just as if you were inspecting equality in the field of weights or measures and not deliberating about men’s ethical and political principles.
