But I will tell you what plea is in order from the honest advocate. When an indictment for an illegal motion is tried in court, the day is divided into three parts. The first water is poured in1 for the accuser, the laws, and the democracy the second water, for the defendant and those who speak on the question at issue; but when the question of illegality has been decided by the first ballot,2 then the third water is poured in for the question of the penalty and the extent of your anger.
1 Into the clepsydra, by which the time allowed to each side was measured. Cp. Aeschin. 2.126 and note.
2 The jurors balloted first on the question whether the motion was illegal as charged. If they sustained the prosecution, both sides then argued the question of the nature and extent of the penalty, after which the jurors cast a final ballot, fixing the penalty.
Aeschines. Aeschines with an English translation by Charles Darwin Adams, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1919.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.