[28]
Neither were the Aegeidae ignorant that
Theseus, the son of Aegeus, for the first time established equality in the
State.1 They thought it, therefore, a
dreadful thing to be false to the principles of that ancestor, and they
preferred to be dead rather than through love of life to survive among the
Greeks with this equality lost. The Pandionidae had inherited the tradition of
Procne and Philomela, the daughters of Pandion, who took vengeance on Tereus for
his crime against themselves.2 Therefore they decided that life was not worth living unless
they, akin by race, should have proved themselves to possess equal spirit with
those women, when confronted by the outrage they saw being committed against
Greece.
1 According to Plut. Thes. 25, it was equality between newcomers and natives that Theseus established; the word ἰσονομία usually means equality before the law and is almost a synonym for democracy.
2 Procne is said to have murdered her own son Itys and to have served his flesh to her husband Tereus in revenge for his treachery to herself and his cruelty to Philomela. It is curious that the speaker seems less shocked by this crime than by the innocent tale of Alope, Dem. 60.31, below.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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