But the words which you, Demosthenes, will speak, are the natural expression of a worthless scoundrel, with whom virtue is a pretence. One thing at any rate is sure, by Heracles; no one of you will feel any anxiety lest Demosthenes, a man high-spirited and distinguished in war, will, if he fails to receive the meed of valor, go back home and make away with himself—he who so despises honor in your eyes that on this pestilential and accountable1 head of his upon which Ctesiphon, in defiance of all the laws, proposes that you set a crown, he has inflicted a thousand gashes, and he has made money out of his wounds by bringing suit2 for malicious assault. And on one occasion he got such a smashing blow that I imagine he still carries the visible marks of Meidias' knuckles.3 For it is not a head that the creature possesses, but an investment.
1 The Greek word ὑπεύθυνον, here rendered “accountable,” is the technical expression for the accountability of the official who has not yet appeared before the board of auditors.
2 See Aeschin. 2.93. The single case there referred to is, so far as we know, the only pretext for Aeschines' “thousand gashes.”
3 See on Aeschin. 3.52.
Aeschines. Aeschines with an English translation by Charles Darwin Adams, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1919.
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