Against Meidias

The brutality and insolence with which Meidias treats everyone alike are, I suppose, as well known to you, gentlemen of the jury, as to all other citizens. For myself, I have simply taken the course which anyone of you would have adopted, had he been the victim of a similar outrage. I lodged a plaint in the Assembly against him as an offender in connection with the festival, not only for his assault on my person at the Dionysia, but for many other acts of violence during the whole period when I served as chorus-master. But when the whole people, acting honorably and rightly, evinced such anger, such exasperation, such deep concern at the wrongs which they knew I had suffered, that, in spite of the frantic efforts of the defendant and a few supporters, they were deaf to their arguments, shut their eyes to their wealth and their promises, and condemned him by an unanimous show of hands, thereupon, gentlemen of the jury, many citizens, including some of you who are here in court, came to me and demanded and even implored that I should take the further step of bringing Meidias under your jurisdiction; and they did so, I think, for two reasons, men of Athens, because, so help me heaven! they thought that my own wrongs were serious, and they also wished to punish Meidias for conduct which they had witnessed on other occasions, as a scoundrel and a ruffian who could no longer be tolerated. This being so, I have in your interests taken all due precautions, and now that the case is before the court, I am here, as you see, to accuse him, having refused large sums of money, men of Athens, which I might have accepted on condition of dropping the prosecution, and having had to steel myself against many appeals and favorable offers-yes, and even menaces. What yet remains to do is in your hands; but my hope is that the more the defendant has pestered you with his solicitations—I observed just now what he was up to in front of the courthouse-more likely I am to obtain justice. For I would not insult any of you by imagining that you will be indifferent to the cause in which you so heartily supported me before, or that, in order to grant Meidias immunity for future outrages, any juryman remembering his oath will give other than what he considers a righteous verdict. Now if, men of Athens, I were going to accuse Meidias of unconstitutional proposals or of misconduct on an embassy or of any offence of that sort, I should not feel justified in appealing for your sympathy, for I consider that in such cases the plaintiff ought to confine himself to proving his case, though the defendant may have recourse to prayers. But since Meidias bribed the umpires and so robbed my tribe unfairly of the prize, since I in person was struck by him and insulted as perhaps no chorus-master was ever insulted before, and since I am here to follow up the verdict which the Assembly pronounced in indignation and anger at such conduct, for these reasons I shall not shrink even from an appeal to you. For, if I may say so, it is now I who am in the position of a defendant, if indeed to obtain no redress for an insult is the real calamity. Therefore, gentlemen of the jury, I appeal to you all, and implore you first to grant me a favorable hearing, and secondly, if I prove that the insults of Meidias touch, not me only, but you and the laws and the whole body of citizens, to come at once to any rescue and to your own. For the case stands thus, Athenians. I was the victim and it was my person that was then outraged; but now the question to be fought out and decided is whether Meidias is to be allowed to repeat his performances and insult anyone and everyone of you with impunity. Therefore if perhaps anyone of you hitherto assumed that this action was brought from private motives, when he now reflects that this is a matter of general concern, and that public interest demands that no one shall be allowed to act in this way, let him grant me an attentive hearing, and then let him give what seems to him the fairest verdict.