[22]
That is why the young spend their days in the courts instead of in the gymnasia; that is why our old men fight our battles, while our young men make speeches— they take Alcibiades as their model, Alcibiades who carries his villainy to such unheard-of lengths that, after recommending that the people of Melos1 be sold into slavery, he purchased a woman from among the prisoners and has since had a son by her, a child whose birth was more unnatural than that of Aegis—thus,2 since he is sprung from parents who are each other's deadliest enemies, and of his nearest kin the one has committed and the other has suffered the most terrible of wrongs.
1 In 425 B.C. Melos refused to pay the increased tribute demanded of her, and during the years which followed displayed a general defiance of Athens. Athens finally acted in the summer of 416. A fleet attacked the island, the male population was massacred, and the women and children sold as slaves. See Thuc. 5.
2 Son of Thyestes by his own daughter, Pelopeia. He was exposed as a child, but saved by shepherds. His uncle, Atreus, then brought him up as his own son. Later he murdered Atreus and placed Thyestes on his throne.
Andocides. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes 1, Antiphon Andocides, with an English translation by K. J. Maidment, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1968.
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