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Now when in the course of his speech he declared that the Areopagus disapproved the proposition of Timarchus, and said, You must not be surprised, fellow citizens, if Timarchus is better acquainted than the Senate of the Areopagus with this lonely spot and the region of the Pnyx, then you applauded and said Autolycus was right, for Timarchus was indeed acquainted with it.Evidently the region was a disreputable one, and the houses known as cheap places of ill repute.
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Autolycus, however, did not catch the point of your uproar; he frowned and stopped a moment; then he went on: But, fellow citizens, we members of the Areopagus neither accuse nor defend, for such is not our tradition, but we do make some such allowance as this for Timarchus: he perhaps, said he, thought that where everything is so quiet, there will be but little expense for each of you. Again, at the words quiet and little expense, he encountered still greater laughter and shouting from you.Apparently the speaker meant that Timarchus thought that in this time of peace, with its small demands on the treasury, only a light burden would fall on each citizen, if the state should carry out the local improvements proposed, perhaps the clearing away of the disreputable houses from the slope of the hill.
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and when he spoke of the house sites and the tanks you simply couldn’ t restrain yourselves.It is not unlikely that the vulgar crowd made merry over the word οἰκοπέδων as sounding like ὀρχιδέδων(testicles), and λάκκων like λακκοπέδων (scrota). Thereupon Pyrrandrus came forward to censure you, and he asked the people if they were not ashamed of themselves for laughing in the presence of the Senate of the Areopagus. But you drove him off the platform, replying, We know, Pyrrandrus, that we ought not to laugh in their presence, but so strong is the truth that it prevails—over all the calculations of men.
