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The contempt, however, which this fellow
feels for all sacred things I must tell you about; for I have been forced to
make inquiry. For I hear, then, men of the jury, that a certain Bacchius, who
was condemned to death in your court, and Aristocrates, the man with the bad
eyes, and certain others of the same stamp, and with them this man Conon, were intimates when they were youths,
and bore the nickname Triballi1; and that these
men used to devour the food set out for Hecatê2 and to gather up on each occasion for
their dinner with one another the testicles of the pigs which are offered for
purification when the assembly convenes,3 and
that they thought less of swearing and perjuring themselves than of anything
else in the world.
1 The Triballi were a wild Thracian people. Many parallels for the use of the name to denote a club of lawless youths at Athens might be cited. Sandys refers to the Mohock club of eighteenth century London.
2 The witch-goddess worshipped at cross roads. Portions of victims which had served for purification were set out for her. To take and eat this food might connote extreme poverty, but suggested also an utter disregard for sacred things.
3 Young pigs were sacrificed in a ceremonial purification of the place of meeting before the people entered the ἐκκλησία（the popular assembly）.
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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