[17]
I am informed that he alleges that I am guilty of impiety in seeking to abolish the sacrifices. But if it were I who were law-making over this transcription of our code, I should take it to be open to Nicomachus to make such a statement about me. But in fact I am merely claiming that he should obey the code established and patent to all1; and I am surprised at his not observing that, when he taxes me with impiety for saying that we ought to perform the sacrifices named in the tablets and pillars as directed in the regulations, he is accusing the city as well: for they are what you have decreed. And then, sir, if you feel these to be hard words, surely you must attribute grievous guilt to those citizens who used to sacrifice solely in accordance with the tablets.
1 The speaker seems to mean: “If I, like Nicomachus, were using the opportunities of a transcriber for the purpose of unauthorized ‘law-making,’ he might reasonably accuse me of some such innovation as ‘abolishing sacrifices’; whereas I merely demand that he should adhere to the established code, about which there is no doubt or secrecy.”
Lysias. Lysias with an English translation by W.R.M. Lamb, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1930.
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