[71]
Do you imagine that any one of those heroes would have been ready to condone such an act? Would they not have stoned to death one who was disgracing their valor? At least they all loved their country so much that they nearly stoned to death Alexander,1 the envoy from Xerxes, formerly their friend, because he demanded earth and water. If they thought it right to exact vengeance for a speech, are we to believe that they would not have visited with severe punishment a man who in fact delivered his country into the hands of the enemy?
1 Alexander of Macedon was conquered by Mardonius in 492 B.C. This account of him does not tally with that of Herodotus （Hdt. 8.136） in which he is portrayed as a friend of the Athenians who, though pressed into the service of Persia, only visited them after Salamis to offer favorable terms and was not “nearly stoned to death.” The only stoning described by Herodotus was the execution of a certain Lycidas who proposed that the Athenians should accept terms from Persia （Hdt. 9.5）.
Lycurgus. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes, 2, with an English translation by J. O. Burtt, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.
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