Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

7554

Lucian, The Tyrannicide, 11

nan ‘But you did not kill the tyrant; the law assigns the reward to him who kills the tyrant.’ And pray what is the difference between killing him and causing his death? I see none. The law giver had but one end in view,— freedom, equality, deliverance from oppression. This was the signal service that he deemed worthy of recompense; and this service you cannot deny that I have rendered. In slaying one whom the tyrant could not survive, I myself wrought the tyrant’s death. His was the hand: the deed was mine. Let us not chop logic as to the manner and circumstances of his death, but rather ask: has he ceased to exist, and am I the cause? Your scruples might go further, and object to some future deliverer of his country, that he struck not with the sword, but with a stick or a stone or the like. Had I blockaded the tyrant, and brought about his death by starvation, you would still, I suppose, have objected that it was not the work of my own hand? Again there would have been a flaw in my claim? The increased bitterness of such a death would have counted for nothing with you? Confine your attention to this one question: does any of our oppressors survive? is there any ground for anxiety, any vestige of our past misery? If not, if all is peace, then none but an envious detractor would attempt to deprive me of the reward of my labours by inquiring into the means employed.

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subject	book bibliographic info
art,interpretation of symbols	Bickerman and Tropper (2007) 944
art	Bickerman and Tropper (2007) 944
oedipus	Bickerman and Tropper (2007) 944
psychology	Bickerman and Tropper (2007) 944
succession to throne and royal harem'	Bickerman and Tropper (2007) 944