3. Aeschines, Or., 1.42, 1.45-1.50, 1.54, 1.60, 1.67, 1.69, 1.114-1.115, 1.128-1.130, 1.173, 1.175-1.176, 1.185, 1.188, 1.190, 2.153, 2.183
Tagged with subjects: • Aeschines, Against Timarchus • Timarchus
Found in books: Hesk (2000), Deception and Democracy in Classical Athens, 214; Martin (2009), Divine Talk: Religious Argumentation in Demosthenes, 69, 166, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 177, 204, 206; Michalopoulos et al. (2021), The Rhetoric of Unity and Division in Ancient Literature, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 58, 63
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1.42 Timarchus did not hesitate, but submitted to it all, though he had income to satisfy all reasonable desires. For his father had left him a very large property, which he has squandered, as I will show in the course of my speech. But he behaved as he did because he was a slave to the most shameful lusts, to gluttony and extravagance at table, to flute-girls and harlots, to dice, and to all those other things no one of which ought to have the mastery over a man who is well-born and free. And this wretch was not ashamed to abandon his father's house and live with Misgolas, a man who was not a friend of his father's, nor a person of his own age, but a stranger, and older than himself, a man who knew no restraint in such matters, while Timarchus himself was in the bloom of youth. " 1.45 However, although the fact in this case is acknowledged, I remember that we are in court, and so I have drafted an affidavit for Misgolas, true and not indelicate in phrasing, as I flatter myself. For I do not set down the actual name of the thing that Misgolas used to do to him, nor have I written anything else that would legally incriminate a man who has testified to the truth.That is, Misgolas can testify to the truth of the affidavit without thereby testifying to any criminal act of his own. But I have set down what will be no news for you to hear, and will involve the witness in no danger nor disgrace. 1.46 If therefore Misgolas is willing to come forward here and testify to the truth, he will be doing what is right; but if he prefers to refuse the summons rather than testify to the truth, the whole business will be made clear to you. For if the man who did the thing is going to be ashamed of it and choose to pay a thousand drachmas into the treasury rather than show his face before you,It is evident from this that when a formal summons to testify in court was refused, a definite fine was inflicted. while the man to whom it has been done is to be a speaker in your assembly, then wise indeed was the lawgiver who excluded such disgusting creatures from the platform. ' "1.47 But if Misgolas does indeed answer the summons, but resorts to the most shameless course, denial of the truth under oath, as a grateful return to Timarchus, and a demonstration to the rest of them that he well knows how to help cover up such conduct, in the first place he will damage himself, and in the second place he will gain nothing by it. For I have prepared another affidavit for those who know that this man Timarchus left his father's house and lived with Misgolas, though it is a difficult thing, no doubt, that I am undertaking. For I have to present as my witnesses, not friends of mine nor enemies of theirs, nor those who are strangers to both of us, but their friends. " "1.48 But even if they do persuade these men also not to testify—I do not expect they will, at any rate not all of them—one thing at least they will never succeed in accomplishing: they will never hush up the truth, nor blot out Timarchus' reputation among his fellow citizens—a reputation which he owes to no act of mine, but to his own conduct. For the life of a virtuous man ought to be so clean that it will not admit even of a suspicion of wrong-doing. " '1.49 But I wish to say another thing in anticipation, in case Misgolas shall answer before the laws and before you. There are men who by nature differ widely from the rest of us as to their apparent age. For some men, young in years, seem mature and older than they are; others, old by count of years, seem to be mere youths. Misgolas is such a man. He happens, indeed, to be of my own age, and was in the cadet corps with me;All Athenian young men were required to undergo military training during the two years following their eighteenth birthday. The first year they were in garrison at the Piraeus. At the close of the year, after a public exhibition of their military attainments, they received a shield and spear from the state, and then were sent out for another year to garrison the forts and patrol the borders. we are now in our forty-fifth year. I am quite gray, as you see, but not he. Why do I speak of this? Because I fear that,seeing him for the first time, you may be surprised,and some such thought as this may occur to you: “Heracles! This man is not much older than Timarchus.” For not only is this youthful appearance characteristic of the man, but moreover Timarchus was already past boyhood when he used to be in his company. 1.50 But not to delay, call first, if you please, those who know that Timarchus here lived in the house of Misgolas, then read the testimony of Phaedrus, and, finally, please take the affidavit of Misgolas himself, in case fear of the gods, and respect for those who know the facts as well as he does, and for the citizens at large and for you the jurors, shall persuade him to testify to the truth.Testimony;Misgolas, son of Nicias, of Piraeus, testifies. Timarchus, who once used to stay at the house of Euthydicis the physician, became intimate with me, and I hold him today in the same esteem as in all my past acquaintance with him.;
1.54 Among the men who spend their time there is one Pittalacus, a slave-fellow who is the property of the city. He had plenty of money, and seeing Timarchus spending his time thus he took him and kept him in his own house. This foul wretch here was not disturbed by the fact that he was going to defile himself with a public slave, but thought of one thing only, of getting him to be paymaster for his own disgusting lusts; to the question of virtue or of shame he never gave a thought.
1.60 The next day Pittalacus, exceeding angry over the affair, comes without his cloak to the marketplace and seats himself at the altar of the Mother of the Gods. And when, as always happens, a crowd of people had come running up, Hegesandrus and Timarchus, afraid that their disgusting vices were going to be published to the whole town—a meeting of the assembly was about to be held—hurried up to the altar themselves, and some of their gaming-companions with them,
1.67 Now I will summon Hegesandrus himself for you. I have written out for him an affidavit that is too respectable for a man of his character, but a little more explicit than the one I wrote for Misgolas. I am perfectly aware that he will refuse to swear to it, and presently will perjure himself. Why then do I call him to testify? That I may demonstrate to you what sort of man this kind of life produces—how regardless of the gods, how contemptuous of the laws, how indifferent to all disgrace. Please call Hegesandrus.The Clerk of the Court now reads the affidavit, and calls on Hegesandrus to swear to it. He refuses.
1.69 I was sure, fellow citizens, that Hegesandrus would disdain the oath, and I told you so in advance. This too is plain at once, that since he is not willing to testify now, he will presently appear for the defence. And no wonder, by Zeus! For he will come up here to the witness stand, I suppose, trusting in his record, honorable and upright man that he is, an enemy of all evil-doing, a man who does not know who Leodamas was—Leodamas, at whose name you yourselves raised a shout as the affidavit was being read.
1.114 In consequence of this experience so great became his contempt for you that immediately, on the occasion of the revision of the citizen lists, he gathered in two thousand drachmas. For he asserted that Philotades of Cydathenaeon, a citizen, was a former slave of his own, and he persuaded the members of the deme to disfranchise him. He took charge of the prosecution in court,See on Aeschin. 1.77. and after he had taken the sacred offerings in his hand and sworn that he had not taken a bribe and would not, 1.115 and though he swore by the usual gods of oathsThe scholiast tells us that these gods were Apollo, Demeter, and Zeus. and called down destruction on his own head, yet it has been proved that he received twenty minas from Leuconides, the brother-in-law of Philotades, at the hands of Philemon the actor, which money he soon spent on his mistress Philoxene. And so he broke his oath and abandoned the case. To prove that I speak the truth please call Philemon, who paid over the money, and Leuconides, the brother-in-law of Philotades, and read the copy of the agreement by which he effected the sale of the case.AffidavitsAgreement ' "
1.128 to manifest and so far from being fabricated is this statement of mine, that you will find that both our city and our forefathers dedicated an altar to Common Report, as one of the greatest gods;The scholiast tells us that this altar was dedicated to commemorate news of a victory of Cimon's in Pamphylia, received at Athens the day the battle was fought. Paus. 1.17.1) attests the existence of the altar. and you will find that Homer again and again in the Iliad says, of a thing that has not yet come to pass, “Common Report came to the host;” and again you will find Euripides declaring that this god is able not only to make known the living, revealing their true characters, but the dead as well, when he says, “Common Report shows forth the good man, even though he be in the bowels of the earth;” " '1.129 and Hesiod expressly represents her as a goddess, speaking in words that are very plain to those who are willing to understand, for he says, “But Common Report dies never, the voice that tongues of many men do utter. She also is divine.”The quotation from Hesiod is from Hes. WD 763 f.; that from Euripides is not found in any of the extant plays, nor do we find the Homeric phrase in the Iliad. Indeed, the word fh/mh does not occur in the Iliad, and it is found only three times in the Odyssey(Hom. Od. 2.35; Hom. Od. 20.100, Hom. Od. 20.105), where it is used of words of ominous meaning. You will find that all men whose lives have been decorous praise these verses of the poets. For all who are ambitious for honor from their fellows believe that it is from good report that fame will come to them. But men whose lives are shameful pay no honor to this god, for they believe that in her they have a deathless accuser. 1.130 Call to mind, therefore, fellow citizens, what common report you have been accustomed to hear in the case of Timarchus. The instant the name is spoken you ask, do you not, “What Timarchus do you mean? The prostitute?” Furthermore, if I had presented witnesses concerning any matter, you would believe me; if then I present the god as my witness, will you refuse to believe? But she is a witness against whom it would be impiety even to bring complaint of false testimony. ' "
1.173 Did you put to death Socrates the sophist, fellow citizens, because he was shown to have been the teacher of Critias, one of the Thirty who put down the democracy, and after that, shall Demosthenes succeed in snatching companions of his own out of your hands, Demosthenes, who takes such vengeance on private citizens and friends of the people for their freedom of speech? At his invitation some of his pupils are here in court to listen to him. For with an eye to business at your expense,Success in this case will increase Demosthenes' reputation, and bring him more pupils and tuition fees. he promises them, as I understand, that he will juggle the issue and cheat your ears, and you will never know it; " 1.175 So I do beg you by all means not to furnish this sophist with laughter and patronage at your expense. Imagine that you see him when he gets home from the court-room, putting on airs in his lectures to his young men, and telling how successfully he stole the case away from the jury. “I carried the jurors off bodily from the charges brought against Timarchus, and set them on the accuser, and Philip, and the Phocians, and I suspended such terrors before the eyes of the hearers that the defendant began to be the accuser, and the accuser to be on trial; and the jurors forgot what they were to judge; and what they were not to judge, to that they listened.” 1.176 But it is your business to take your stand against this sort of thing, and following close on his every step, to let him at no point turn aside nor persist in irrelevant talk; on the contrary, act as you do in a horse-race, make him keep to the track—of the matter at issue. If you do that, you will not fail of respect, and you will have the same sentiments when you are called to enforce laws that you had when you made them; but if you do otherwise, it will appear that when crimes are about to be committed, you foresee them and are angry, but after they have been committed, you no longer care.
1.185 Such, then, was the judgment of your fathers concerning things shameful and things honorable; and shall their sons let Timarchus go free, a man chargeable with the most shameful practices, a creature with the body of a man defiled with the sins of a woman? In that case, who of you will punish a woman if he finds her in wrong doing? Or what man will not be regarded as lacking intelligence who is angry with her who errs by an impulse of nature,while he treats as adviserThe question at issue is whether Timarchus is to be allowed to continue to be an adviser of the city, by speaking in the assembly of the people. the man who in despite of nature has sinned against his own body? ' "
1.188 I am also surprised, fellow citizens, that you who hate the brothel-keeper propose to let the willing prostitute go free. And it seems that a man who is not to be permitted to be a candidate for election by lot for the priesthood of any god, as being impure of body as that is defined by the laws, this same man is to write in our decrees prayers to the August GoddessesThe Eumenides. in behalf of the state. Why then do we wonder at the futility of our public acts, when the names of such public men as this stand at the head of the people's decrees? And shall we send abroad as ambassador a man who has lived shamefully at home, and shall we continue to trust that man in matters of the greatest moment? What would he not sell who has trafficked in the shame of his own body? Whom would he pity who has had no pity on himself? " 1.190 Many men of this sort you could find who have overthrown cities and have fallen into the greatest misfortunes themselves. For you must not imagine, fellow citizens, that the impulse to wrong doing is from the gods; nay, rather, it is from the wickedness of men; nor that ungodly men are, as in tragedy, driven and chastised by the FuriesThe Furies (Poenae) are gods of punishment, more definitely personified in the Erinyes. The hearers would be reminded of the chasing of Orestes in the Eumenidesof Aeschylus. with blazing torches in their hands.
2.153 But in public affairs I have become exceedingly entangled with a cheat and rascal, who not even by accident can speak a truthful word. No: when he is lying, first comes an oath by his shameless eyes, and things that never happened he not only presents as facts, but he even tells the day on which they occurred; and he invents the name of some one who happened to be there, and adds that too, imitating men who speak the truth. But we who are innocent are fortunate in one thing, that he has no intelligence with which to supplement the trickery of his character and his knack of putting words together. For think what a combination of folly and ignorance there must be in the man who could invent such a lie against me as that about the Olynthian woman, such a lie that you shut him up in the midst of his speech. For he was slandering a man who is the farthest removed from any such conduct, and that in the presence of men who know.
2.183 A word more and I have done. One thing was in my power, fellow citizens: to do you no wrong. But to be free from accusation, that was a thing which depended upon fortune, and fortune cast my lot with a slanderer, a barbarian, who cared not for sacrifices nor libations nor the breaking of bread together; nay, to frighten all who in time to come might oppose him, he has fabricated a false charge against us and come in here. If, therefore, you are willing to save those who have laboured together with you for peace and for your security, the common good will find champions in abundance, ready to face danger in your behalf.'" None |
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