[72]
For it was not the blow but the indignity that roused the
anger. To be struck is not the serious thing for a free man, serious though it
is, but to be struck in wanton insolence. Many things, Athenians, some of which
the victim would find it difficult to put into words, may be done by the
striker—by gesture, by look, by tone; when he strikes in wantonness or
out of enmity; with the fist or on the cheek. These are the things that provoke
men and make them beside themselves, if they are unused to insult. No
description, men of Athens, can
bring the outrage as vividly before the hearers as it appears in truth and
reality to the victim and to the spectators.
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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