[12]
And you accuse me in the impeachment of undermining the democracy by breaking the laws; but you override every law yourself, by presenting an impeachment in a case where the laws require a public charge before the Thesmothetae.1 Your object was to run no risk in bringing in the action and also to have the opportunity of writing tragic phrases2 in the impeachment, such as you have written now, protesting that I am making many women grow old unmarried in their homes and many live illegally with men unsuited for them.
1 A list of offences for which impeachments were appropriate is given in Hyp. 4.8. The Thesmothetae were concerned mainly with crimes directed against the state, but they also dealt with cases of assault and adultery （ὕβρις and μοιχεία）. See Hyp. 4.6 and Aristot. Ath. Pol. 59.
2 For this use of the noun τραγῳδία compare Hyp. 4.26. The verb τραγῳδέω is used with a similar sense by Demosthenes （e.g. Dem. 18. 13）.
Hyperides. 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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