Κατὰ Ἐρατοσθένους
. [Or. XII.] — Polemarchus, brother of Lysias, had been put to death by the Thirty Tyrants. Eratosthenes, one of their number, was the man who had arrested him and taken him to prison. In this speech Lysias, himself the speaker, charges Eratosthenes with the murder of Polemarchus, and, generally, with his share in the Tyranny. A special clause in the Amnesty of 403 B.C. excluded the Thirty Tyrants, the Ten who had succeeded them, and the Eleven who had executed their sentences. But any one even of these might enjoy the Amnesty if he chose to stand a public inquiry, and was acquitted. When the oligarchy was finally overthrown, Pheidon and Eratosthenes were the only members of it who stayed at Athens. As they dared to do this, they must have availed themselves of the permission to give account of their office. Here, then, we have not to do with an ordinary indictment for murder (γραφὴ φόνου). The public inquiry into the conduct of Eratosthenes afforded Lysias the opportunity for preferring his accusation. This is indicated (1) by the wide range of topics in the speech, dealing, as it does, with the whole history of the Anarchy: (2) by § 37, where the accuser says that he has done enough in having shown that the guilt of the accused reaches the point at which death is deserved: which he could scarcely have said if (as in a γραφὴ φόνου) death had been the necessary penalty in case of conviction. Date, 403 B.C., shortly after the formal restoration of the Democracy in Sept., and before the expedition against Eleusis had dislodged the fugitive Tyrants from that place (Xen. Hellen. II. 4. 43): see § 80 of the speech, μηδ᾽ ἀποῦσι μὲν τοῖς τριάκοντα ἐπιβουλεύετε, παρόντας δ᾽ ἀφῆτε. — Attic Orators, I. 261 f.1. Narrative: the Murder of Polemarchus. — §§ 1 — 36.
αὐτοῖς=τοῖς τριάκοντα, whose names were already before the court. In § 33, τούτοις=the Thirty as represented in court by Eratosthenes. μήτ᾽ ἂν ψ. — δύνασθαι i.e. οὔτε ψευδόμενος (=εἰ ψεύδοιτο) δ. τῶν ὑ. κατηγορήσαι ἄν (τις), οὔτε τἀλ. βουλόμενος (=εἰ βούλοιτο) εἰπεῖν ἅπαντα δύναιτο ἄν.τοὐναντίον δέ...ἐξαμαρτάνειν ‘And I believe that our experience’ (as accusers of E.) ‘will be contrary to all prece dent. Heretofore the accuser has always been expected to show what enmity exists between himself and the accused: here, it is from the accused that we have to ask what was that enmity towards the Commonwealth which gave them the heart to sin so enormously against it’. Personal enmity (ἔχθρα) was regarded as a proof that the accuser was in grim earnest, — that he was not a mere busy-body (πολυπράγμων) or mercenary calumniator (συκοφάντης). Thus the accuser of Agoratus begins by showing that his own wrongs entitle him to appear in that capacity: τυγχάνει οὖν ἐμοὶ ἡ αὐτὴ ἔχθρα πρὸς Ἀγόρατον τουτονὶ καὶ τῷ πλήθει τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ὑπάρχουσα: ‘so my personal quarrel with A. is the same as that of the Athenian People’: In Agor. § 1. ἥτις εἴη — ἥτις ἦν] εἴη, because ἔδει is a secondary tense. εἴη may be the oblique either of ἐστί or of ἦν: δεῖ τοὺς κατηγ. ἐπιδ. τὴν ἔχθρ. ἥτις ἐστί, (or ἦν, was when they brought the charge): but is best taken as representing ἐστί. Just to avoid this ambiguity, the Greek imperf. and pluperf. are usually kept in the indic., even when they might be changed into the optat. For an exception, see Dem. Adv. Onet. I. § 20, ἀπεκρίναντο ὅτι οὐδεὶς μάρτυς παρείη: this would usually mean, ‘they replied, “No witness is present”’ (πάρεστι): it really means, ‘they replied, “No witness was (at that former time) present”’ (παρῆν). — Cp. Goodwin pp. 148, 153. οὐ μέντοι...ὀργίζ.] ‘I do not speak, however, as one who has no personal resentments or grievances’ [against the Thirty]; ‘I only mean that everyone has abundant matter of indignation against them, either on private or on public grounds’: i.e. if there be any one who (unlike myself) has no private wrongs to resent, he may remember the wrongs of the community. The first part of L.'s speech (§§ 1 — 36) deals with τὰ ἴδια: the second (§§ 37 — end) with τὰ δημόσια.
ποιήσωμαι better, I think, here than ποιήσομαι, which Rauchenstein prefers. The fut. indic., after a verb of fearing, usually implies that the thing feared is vividly seen as the more probable of the possible results; the subjunctive suits the present context better, because it better expresses a mind divided between fear and hope.
Κέφαλος A Syracusan who settled at Athens as a μέτοικος. Plato marks his hospitable disposition in the Republic (328 D), of which the opening scene is laid at the house of his eldest son Polemarchus. — Attic Orators, I. 145. ἐδικασάμεθα...ἐφύγ.] ‘maintained’ an action — ‘defended it’. Though δικάζεσθαι can be said of both parties to a suit, yet δίκην δικάζεσθαί τινι is esp. said of him who ‘goes to law’ with another, — ὁ διώκων.
συκοφάνται ‘mercenary accusers’. Cp. Lys. or. XXV. § 19 (of the demagogues), ἔνιοι δ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖς ὑμετέροις ἐδωροδόκουν, οἱ δὲ συκοφαντοῦντες τοὺς συμμάχους ἀφίστασαν: Xen. Hellen. II. 3. 12, ἀπὸ συκοφαντίας ζῶντας. τραπέσθαι ‘and that the rest of the citizens should come into the paths of virtue and justice’. It is needless to conjecture προτρέψασθαι. [καὶ] τοιαῦτα λέγοντες] The καὶ here seems clearly a spurious addition, whether due to a mere error of the eye, or to a desire of connecting φάσκοντες with λέγοντες. Only two versions of it are possible, and neither is tolerable. (1) ‘and saying things of that kind’, — so that the words become a general statement appended to the special statement φάσκοντες χρῆναι, — a sort of ‘etcetera’: (2) ‘though they said such things’. But, in a simple contrast between deed and word, καί would not thus be added to the participle. Here, if so added, it ought rather to mean ‘even when saying’. ὡς ἐγὼ...πειράσομαι] ‘as, when I have first spoken of my own affairs (§§ 1 — 36), I will endeavour to bring to your memory in regard to your affairs also’: ἀναμνῆσαι=διδάξαι ἀναμνήσαντα, with καὶ περὶ τῶν ὑμετέρων.
τῇ πολιτείᾳ ‘the constitution’ — a ὑποκόρισμα: for the rule of the Thirty was unconstitutional (οὐ μετὰ νόμων), and was known, when a real πολιτεία had been restored, as the ἀναρχία. χρηματίζεσθαι ‘to make money’: lit. ‘to do business to one's own profit’: οἰόμενοι χρηματιεῖσθαι μᾶλλον ἢ μαχεῖσθαι (Athenians in Sicily), Thuc. VII. 13: but act. χρηματίζειν, to transact (public) business, ib. I. 87. πάντως ‘at any rate’ — i.e. whatever view their colleagues might be disposed to take of the project for plundering the resident aliens.
ἡγοῦντο...ἐποιοῦντο See note above on p. 60 § 13, ἡγουμένους...νομίζοντας. ἵνα...πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ‘in order that, as against the others’, [the eight rich μέτοικοι,] ‘they might have the plea’ [ᾖ vivid for εἴη] ‘that these measures had not been taken from mercenary motives, but in the interests of the Constitution, — just as they might defend any other measure adopted for sufficient reasons’. ὥσπερ τι...πεποιηκότες, sc. ἀπολογίαν ἂν ἔχοιεν: the nom., as if ἵνα ἔχωσιν ἀπολογίαν (instead of ἵνα αὐτοῖς ᾖ ἀπολ.) had preceded. — εὐλόγως, i.e. for reasons satisfactory to the government, though not communicated to the people. διαλαβόντες δέ ‘Each was told off for certain houses [of the μέτοικοι], and the visits began’. Cp. Dem. De Cor. § 132, ἐπ᾽ οἰκίας βαδίζων ἄνευ ψηφίσματος, making domiciliary visits without special authority from the Ecclesia.
τὸ ἐργαστήριον The shield-manufactory, the property of the brothers, near the house in the Peiraeus occupied by Lysias: see Attic Orators, I. 147. — ἀπεγράφοντο, ‘proceeded to take a list of’. ἔφασκεν, κ.τ.λ. sc. σώσειν. His words were, σώσω, ἂν πολλὰ ᾖ. — εἴην, oblique of εἰμί (not of ἦν): see on ἥτις εἴη, § 2. — ταῦτα, not τοῦτο: so § 14.
ἐξώλειαν See Antiph. De Caed. Her. § 11 (above, p. 11). τῶν ὑπηρετῶν apparitors, attending him in his official capacity, since the search was made by authority of the Thirty.
κυζ. — δαρ.] The Κυζικηνὸς στατήρ=about £1. 2s. 9d.: the Δαρεικὸς στατήρ (=Ἀττικός) about £1. 1s. 10d. ἀγαπήσειν He said, ἀγαπήσεις εἰ τὸ σῶμα σώσεις, ‘you will be content’, i.e. ‘you must be’. ‘You may think yourself lucky enough if you save your life’.
ἐπιτυγχάνει...ἀπιόντες Dem. In Aristocr. § 12, θήσεσθαι τὰ ὅπλα οὐκ ἤμελλεν ὁ Σίμων οὐδ᾽ ὁ Βιάνωρ, πολῖται γεγενημένοι. βαδίζοιμεν...σκέψηται] βαδίζοιμεν, not βαδίζομεν, because the historic pres. ἐρωτῶσιν is equivalent to a secondary tense: σκέψηται, and not σκέψαιτο, by the vivid construction.
ὑπάρχοντος ‘was assured’.
πρόθ. π. τὴν σεαυτοῦ δ.] i.e. do all that lies in your power,=ὅσον γε ἐπὶ σοί ἐστι.
ὅτι ἀμφίθυρος εἴη ‘that there was a passage through it’ (from the front-door, αὔλειος θύρα, to the back-door, κηπαία θύρα). Of the three doors in § 16, one would be the μέταυλος, another the κηπαία. ἐνθυμουμένῳ — ἀποθ.] ‘reflecting that, if I escaped notice, I should be saved, but if I were caught — well, in that case I thought that I should get off nevertheless, supposing Th. had been persuaded by D. to take the money; or if he had not, my prospect of death would only be the same’ [as if I did not try to save myself by flight]. Instead of ἀφεθήσομαι, ἀποθανοῦμαι, depending on ἐνθυμουμένῳ, we have the futures infin. depending on ἡγούμην, — inserted to avoid the awkwardness of one conditional clause immediately following another (ἐὰν δὲ ληφθῶ, εἰ μὲν εἴη, κ.τ.λ.).
εἰς ἄστυ The ship-master lived in the Peiraeus, where Lysias himself resided. — αὐτόν, Polemarchus.
τὸ ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων εἰθισμένον sc. παραγγέλλεσθαι.
τριῶν...αὐτόν ‘Though we had three houses, they did not allow the funeral (ἐκφορά) to take place from any one of them, but hired a mean tenement, and there laid out the corpse’. κλί̂σιον, also written κλείσιον (from κλείω, not κλι?́νω?), is used by Antiphanes (Ἀκέστρια 2, Mein. Frag. Com. p. 348) of an outhouse or shed for cattle: τῆς οἰκίας τὸ κλί̂σιον τὸ καλούμενον, | ὃ πρότερον ἦν τοῖς ἐξ ἀγροῦ βουσὶ σταθμὸς | καὶ τοῖς ὄνοις, πεποίηκε — τί δ᾽ ; — ἐργαστήριον. — ὅτι ἕκαστος ἔτυχεν, sc. δούς.
κόσμον here, apparently, ‘valuables’, articles of vertu, etc., as dist. from ἔπιπλα, furniture. κόσμος in sing. usu.=dress, personal adornments, as Il. XIV. 187, πάντα περὶ χροὶ θήκατο κόσμον. ᾤοντο κτήσασθαι ‘thought to acquire’ (not, as the words might mean, ‘thought that they had acquired’). So § 26, οὐκ οἴει...δοῦναι (=δώσειν): § 27, εἰκὸς ἦν ὑπηρετῆσαι (=ὑπηρετήσειν). In such cases, the work of indicating future time is done by the principal verb (ἐλπίζω, etc.), and the aor. infin. has its proper function of marking a momentary as opposed to a continued or repeated act. It is tempting here to read κτήσεσθαι: but the context, and the usage of οἴομαι, seem to render it unnecessary. — Cp. note on p. 50 § 2, ἡγήσατο...<ἂν> γενέσθαι. εἰς τὸ δημόσιον ἀπέδοσαν ‘handed over the rest for the benefit of the Treasury’. (ἀπέδοντο would have meant ‘sold’.) τοσαύτην...τῆς γάρ Cp. Andoc. De Pace § 33 (above, p. 45) τοσαύτην...φασὶ γάρ (instead of ὥστε φάναι). ὅτε τὸ πρῶτον ‘when Melobius first visited the house’. Francken puts a comma after οἰκίαν, understanding ‘when she first came (as a bride) to the house’: but a Greek would not thus have expressed ὅτε πρῶτον ἐγήματο.
ὥσπερ <οὐδ᾽> ἄν sc. ἐξαμαρτάνοιεν. The conjectural insertion of οὐδ᾽ is a rhetorical, though not a logical, necessity. ‘They outraged us as other men would not outrage their bitterest enemies’. Omit the ‘not’; the statement remains intelligible, but ceases to be effective. εἰσφοράς — λυσαμένους Occasional ‘war-taxes’, in addition to the regular μετοίκιον paid by resident aliens. — λυσαμένους: Dem. De Chers. § 70, ἔχων καὶ τριηραρχίας εἰπεῖν καὶ χρημάτων εἰσφορὰς καὶ λύσεις αἰχμαλώτων καὶ τοιαύτας ἄλλας φιλανθρωπίας.
μελλούσας ἐκδίδοσθαι ‘prevented the approaching marriage of many a daughter’ — by leaving her father without the means of giving her a dower (προῖκα ἐπιδοῦναι).
δ᾽ ἐβουλόμην ἄν sc. εἰ δυνατὸν ἦν: Goodwin § 52. 2, cp. Antiph. De Caed. Her. § 1 (above, p. 8). ‘For my part, I could wish that their story were true, since my own share in that gain would not be small’: i.e. his brother would be alive, and their wealth would be intact. — οὔτε...τοιαῦτα ὑπάρχει, ‘they have not such a case’: cannot plead such innocence.
καὶ πρὸς ἕτερον The man stained with murder (ἐναγής) might speak to no one (Aesch. Eum. 426, ἄφθογγον εἶναι τὸν παλαμναῖον νόμος): and for the relatives of the slain it was not ὅσιον to accost him (Isae. or. IX. § 20: cp. Soph. O. T. 238). By a rhetorical exaggeration, Lysias says that he would think it impious to speak even about Eratosthenes, ἐπ᾽ ὠφελείᾳ, for E.'s advantage.
ἵνα <ἀποθάνωμεν ἢ> μὴ ἀποθάνωμεν The words supplied in brackets might easily have dropped out, by accident, or through their supposed redundancy. They are clearly requisite to the rhetorical point of the passage viz., the contrast between his alleged protest and his subsequent acts. In protesting, was your aim to kill us, or to save us? ‘To save you’. And yet afterwards you did everything in your power to kill us? ‘Was the object of your protest to kill us? or to save us?’
εἶθ᾽ εἶτα, ‘so’ — i.e. after protesting as you allege. ἀντειπὼν οὐδὲν ὠφ ‘because you protested, — though the protest was fruitless’. See on Andoc. De Pace, § 29, p. 232. οὐκ οἴει...δοῦναι ‘do you not expect to pay the penalty?’ See above on § 19, ᾤοντο κτήσασθαι.
οὐ γὰρ δή που ‘For I presume that they did not mean to make the case of the resident aliens the test of his loyalty’: i.e. the Thirty Tyrants had proved the fidelity of Eratosthenes to their commands in the case of so many citizens that they did not need to test him on humbler victims. ἐλάμβανον, like ἔμελλον λαβεῖν. ἔπειτα: besides, as it happened, he was a peculiarly unsuitable instrument in this particular case, if (as he says) he had opposed the measure.
τοῖς μὲν ἄλλοις Ἀθ ‘The other Athenians’ are, as § 30 shows, those on whom the Thirty had imposed odious tasks, esp. of domiciliary search.
καὶ λήψεσθε ‘from whom will you ever exact satisfaction?’
καὶ μὲν δὴ...ἀπήγαγεν ‘And moreover it was not in the house but in the street — when he might have saved him without breaking the decree of the Thirty — that he arrested him and took him to prison’: i.e. the commands of the Thirty (if such had been given to Eratosthenes) would have been satisfied by a domiciliary search: cp. § 8. He was not obliged to arrest Polemarchus when he met him in the street. Baiter (see the critical note) keeps closer to the mss. by reading σῴζοντα αὑτόν, ‘when trying to save himself’ (the active as in § 11): but the words κατὰ τὰ τούτοις ἐψηφισμένα must then be taken with συλλαβών, against the sense, since then they tend to excuse E. Sauppe, σῴζειν τε αὐτὸν καὶ τὰ τ. ἐψ. παρόν, i.e. αὐτόν τε καί, ‘to save at once his life and the letter of the decree’. This is neat, but the double use of σῴζειν is unseasonably epigrammatic.
καίτοι...εἶδεν ‘If, however, you are to make allowance for those who destroyed their neighbours to save themselves, those others’ [who were not members of the Oligarchy] ‘have a better claim to your indulgence’ [than Eratosthenes has]; ‘for they incurred peril if they failed to go when they were sent’ [to make an arrest], ‘or if, when they had found the person at home, they denied the fact. But E. might have said that he had not met with Polemarchus, or at all events that he had not seen him’: ἔπειτα — i.e. if it was urged that he had certainly met him. ταῦτα...οὔτ᾽ ἔλεγχον οὔτε βάσανον εἶχεν ‘these statements could not be disproved, or even tested’.
ἀποθανεῖσθαι...ἀπολουμένους On the element of false antithesis (οἱ μ. ἀποθ. and οἱ ἀπολ. being the same), cp. note on Pro Mantitheo § 13 (p. 60).
τῶν τότε λεγομένων=ἐκείνων ἃ τότε ἐλέγετο, — the discussion at the Board of the Thirty, in which E., as he alleges, had opposed the measures taken against Lysias and Polemarchus: §§ 25 f. παρεῖναι — παῤ αὑτοῖς εἶναι ‘Since, so far from being allowed to assist at their councils, we were not allowed even to remain in our own homes’ (chez nous: cp. apud se, Cic. De Or. I. § 214). — τούτοις=τοῖς τριάκοντα, as represented by Eratosthenes. πάντα τὰ κακά, κ.τ.λ. Dobree would read πάντα κακά, as in § 57, πάντα ἀγαθά. But cp. § 41, πάντα τὰ κακά. — πάντα κακά, all sorts of evils: πάντα τὰ κακά, all possible evils.
τοῦτο μέντοι οὐ φεύγω ‘I do not shrink, however, from meeting you on this point’: i.e. as I cannot prove that you did not protest, I am ready to assume that you did. * ἐποίησας So Dobree for ποιήσαις. The optative can be defended as an abstract hypothesis. But the mention of Polemarchus in the sentence certainly strengthens the presumption that Lysias said, ‘what would you have done?’ rather than, ‘what would you do?’ ἐτύχετε...ἀπεψηφίσασθε;] I should hesitate to write, with Kayser, ἐτυγχάνετε...ἀπεψηφίζεσθε; The imperf. (ἂν) ἀπεψηφίζεσθε;=‘would you have been disposed to acquit him?’ The aor. (ἂν) ἀπεψηφίσασθε;=‘would you have acquitted him?’ — which is more forcible here, since it implies that his condemnation is already assured. And if ἀπεψηφίσασθε is genuine, then ἐτύχετε may well be so too, though ἐτυγχάνετε would be equally fitting.
καὶ μὲν δή Cp. § 30. ‘And further’: i.e. apart from the intrinsic merits of the case, it will be taken as a precedent. ἀστῶν simply ‘Athenians’: not τῶν ἐξ ἄστεος opp. to οἱ ἐκ Πειραιῶς (below § 92). δυστυχήσαντες δὲ τὸ ἴσον ὑ. ἕξ.] ‘Or, if they fail, will be no worse off than the rest of you’; i.e. will retain their civic privileges, instead of being punished with ἀτιμία or death. Cp. § 92, ἡττηθέντες τοῖς νικήσασι τὸ ἴσον ἔχετε. ἐκκηρύττουσιν ‘banish by proclamation’: — referring, apparently, to some particular members of the late Oligarchy who had vainly sought refuge in other cities. The party of the Thirty still had their head-quarters at Eleusis: see introd., p. 249. τιμωρουμένους The act. might seem more natural here, but the midd. need imply no more than that the chastiser's own sense of justice is satisfied: cp. below § 94, In Agor. § 76.
τοὺς...στρατηγούς The six generals who were put to death after the Athenian victory at Arginusae (406 B.C.) for having failed to pick up the floating bodies of the slain, or to save the men in the disabled ships, (both are included under τοὺς ἐκ τῆς θαλάττης:) Grote, VIII. 238. Cp. Plat. Apol. p. 32 B, οὐκ ἀνελομένους τοὺς ἐκ τῆς ναυμαχίας. οἳ ἰδιῶται μὲν ὄντες ‘who, while still private persons, did all that lay in their power to bring disaster on your fleet’ (at Aegospotami, 405 B.C.). ‘The general belief...held that the Athenian fleet had been sold to perdition by the treason of some of its own commanders’, Grote, VIII. 300. Lysias means that the oligarchical ἑταιρίαι — worked by such men as soon afterwards became Tyrants — had prepared this result. Cp. Xen. H. II. 1. 32, Isocr. Philipp. § 62. ἀποκτιννύναι imperf.=ὅτι ἀπεκτίννυσαν. οὐκ ἄρα χρή The construction, as originally planned, was οὐκ οὖν δεινὸν εἰ τοὺς μὲν...ἐζημιώσατε,...τούτοις δὲ μὴ κολάσετε; where, however, οὐ κολάσετε would stand, as in Thuc. I. 121, δεινὸν ἂν εἴη εἰ οἱ μὲν...οὐκ ἀπεροῦσιν, ἡμεῖς δὲ...οὐκ ἄρα δαπανήσομεν. (See note to p. 93 § 8, οὐ γὰρ δήπου, κ.τ.λ.) But here the insertion of χρή gives a new turn to the close: — ‘now ought they not to be punished?’ Cp. the insertion of ἡγούμην in § 15, note, p. 252.
2. Peroration. — §§ 92 — 100 (end).
This passage is translated in the Attic Orators, I. 189 — 192. τοὺς ἐξ ἄστ. — τοὺς ἐκ Π.] οἱ ἐξ ἄστεος, ‘the party of the Town’: those who were at Athens under the tyranny of the Thirty, and who were thus identified with the oligarchical side in the struggle between the Tyrants and the patriots. οἱ ἐκ Πειραιῶς, the popular party: the exiles led by Thrasybulus, who came from Phylè to the Peiraeus in Dec. 404 B.C., and recovered Athens before the end of July, 403 B.C. Cp. above, p. 52, § 2: Dem. In Timocr. § 134, τῶν ἐκ Πειραιῶς καὶ ἀπὸ Φυλῆς οὗτος ἦν. τοιοῦτον πόλεμον ‘a war of such a sort that, having been vanquished, you are the equals of the conquerors’ (the patriotic party), ‘whereas, had you conquered, you would have been the slaves of the Tyrants’: i.e. they had been forced to fight against their own interests. τούτοις=τοῖς τριάκοντα, as in § 33.ἂν ἐκτήσαντο ‘they would have gained wealth for their own houses from the administration’ (if they had prevailed in the struggle). There seems no reason for suspecting the genuineness of ἄν. If it were absent, the statement of fact would apply to the time before the struggle, when the Thirty were in power. τῶν ἀγαθῶν ‘their prizes’ (their power and ill-gotten wealth): τῶν ὀνειδῶν, ‘their dishonours’ — the outrages in which they compelled Athenian citizens to be their instruments: see § 30. * εὖνοι ᾤοντο εἶναι ‘(Instead of seeking to win your loyalty by giving you partnership in their prizes), they fancied themselves friendly if they gave you a share of their dishonours’. I read εὖνοι, instead of εὔνους, which the mss. give, for the following reasons. (1) εὔνους can be taken only as accus. plur. We find, indeed, a statement that the comic poet Philemon used εὔνους for εὖνοι, as if by crasis from εὔνοες (Philem. fr. 122, Meineke): but such a notice is not sufficient warrant for assuming so strange a license in Lysias. (2) εὔνους being, then, accus. plur., the words would mean, ‘thought that you were friendly’. But the sense wanted is, ‘thought that you ought to be much obliged to them’. This sense would be obtained if we adopted Dobree's suggestion, and read εὔνους ᾤοντο <δεῖν> εἶναι. (3) But it appears more probable that an original εὖνοι should have been altered to εὔνους, for the sake of symmetry with πιστοὺς in the preceding clause, than that δεῖν should have been omitted.
τοῖς πολεμίοις The party of the Thirty at Eleusis: cp. § 80, ἀποῦσι τοῖς τριάκοντα ἐπιβουλεύετε. τῶν ἐπικούρων ‘the foreign troops’: the Lacedaemonian garrison of 700, under Callibius, which supported the Tyranny: Xen. Hellen. II. 3. 13 f. ἐπίκουροι=ξένοι, μισθοφόροι, here used invidiously, because the Athenian oligarchs promised to maintain the Spartan φρουροί: Xen. l.c. θρέψειν δὲ αὐτοὶ ὑπισχνοῦντο.
τοσαῦτα ‘only thus much’: Thuc. II. 72. ἀφῃρέθητε τὰ ὅπλα The Thirty formed a picked body of 3000 hoplites, and then proclaimed a general muster of all the hoplites in Athens. When this was over, the 3000 seized the arms which the other hoplites had piled in various places, and deposited them in the Acropolis; Xen. H. II. 3. 20, 41: Grote VIII. 336. ἐξεκηρύχθητε The Thirty proclaimed that every one not included in the list of 3000 should quit Athens: Grote VIII. 349. ἐκ τῶν πόλεων ‘The Laced. government, at the instance of the Thirty, issued an edict prohibiting all the members of their confederacy from harbouring fugitive Athenians’: ib. 350. The emigrants were received, however, in Megara, Thebes, Orôpus, Chalcis, Argos.
τὸν θάνατον ‘death’, not ‘the death which threatened them’: the art. giving merely a certain rhetorical emphasis, ‘the doom of death’. So ἡ εἰρήνη peace, ὁ πόλεμος war, ὁ δῆμος democracy: see Shilleto, Dem. Fals. Legat. §§ 100, 149. διέφυγον...ἤλθετε The thought of the slain being uppermost in his mind at the beginning of the sentence causes him to use the third pers. pl. in reference also to the survivors, though these are the same whom he presently addresses in ἤλθετε. ἐν πολεμίᾳ τῇ πατρ. κ.τ.λ. ‘in that fatherland which had become hostile soil, or in the land of strangers’. τοὺς μὲν ἠλευθ ‘you freed some’ [viz. τοὺς ἐξ ἄστεος, the unwilling subjects of the Thirty], ‘you restored others to their country’ [viz. τοὺς ἐκ Πειραιῶς, the patriotic exiles].
ἄν...ἐφεύγετε ‘would now be exiles’. μικρῶν...ἕνεκα ς.] ‘would now be in slavery on account of petty liabilities’, i.e. small debts which their poverty made them unable to discharge, thus giving the creditor a claim upon their persons. Isocr. Plataicus § 48, τοὺς παῖδας (the children of the destitute Plataeans)...πολλοὺς μὲν μικρῶν ἕνεκα συμβολαίων δουλεύοντας, ἄλλους δ᾽ ἐπὶ θητείαν ἰόντας, — where τὸ δουλεύειν, slavery, is opp. to θητεία, labour for wages.
τῆς ἐμῆς προθ lit. ‘nothing is wanting to my zeal’, i.e. ‘my indignation is perfect’. οὐδέν was supplied by Canter. ἀπέδοντο ‘bartered away’: meaning, perh., that the Thirty allowed sacred buildings to be sold and put to secular uses. Others understand, ‘sold the sacred vessels and furniture’ of the temples: as if τὰ ἱερά, a general term, had different meanings with ἀπέδοντο and ἐμίαινον. εἰσιόντες ἐμίαινον ‘defiled by entering them’ — since the Tyrants were ἐναγεῖς, guilty of blood.
εἴσεσθαι τὴν ψῆφον φ ‘will be aware of you when you give your verdict’. * κατεψηφίσθαι ‘have [by that very act] passed sentence’. This is Baiter's simple correction of the corrupt καταψηφιεῖσθαι. It is more probable than κατεψηφισμένους ἔσεσθαι, ‘will have passed’ (Rauchenstein). — πεποιημένους, sc. εἶναι, as if κατεψηφισμένους εἶναι had preceded. ἀκηκόατε, κ.τ.λ. Inexactly cited by Arist. Rhet. III. 19. 6, τελευτὴ δὲ τῆς λέξεως ἁρμόττει ἡ ἀσύνδετος, ὅπως ἐπίλογος ἀλλὰ μὴ λόγος ᾖ, (enumeratio and not altera oratio, Quint. VI. 1. 2,) εἴρηκα, ἀκηκόατε, ἔχετε, κρίνετε.
