[120]
And yet, Athenians, must we not call it a
crime, or rather an impiety, to say that a man is a murderer and then swear that
one has never said this to reproach a man with murder and then sit in the same
room with him? And if I let him off now and so stultify your vote of
condemnation, I am an innocent man apparently; but if I proceed with my case, I
am a deserter, I am accessory to a murder, I deserve extermination. I am quite
of the contrary opinion, men of Athens. If I had let Meidias off, then I should have been a
deserter from the cause of justice, and I might reasonably have charged myself
with murder, for life would have been impossible for me, had I acted thus.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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