Aristogeiton

Now what is the defendant?

All this is bad enough, Heaven knows;

Two Aristogeiton has entered in the register;

If Moerocles replies that this view is too subtle for his understanding, and that, to prevent them from running away, he put them in chains upon his own responsibility, demand of him why in the world he did not see the justice of this proceeding when Taureas, Pataecus, Aristogeiton and himself, though they had been committed to prison, were not only not in chains but would even address the Assembly.

For surely you will not claim it was just, after information was laid in the very same words by the same Council, for that man to be exonerated and me to be ruined;

Neither will you ever show that I received money from Harpalus, for neither was I tried and proved guilty nor did I take money, and if you are looking for excuse to the notorious decision of the Council or to the Areopagus, recall to mind the trial of Aristogeiton and hide your heads in shame;

when they name the Sciritan company of the Lacedaemonians, which never existed, as Thucydides says, and the Athenians honor Harmodius and Aristogeiton most of all, as having freed the city and killed the tyrant.

And I know that Harmodius and Aristogeiton served as slaves among the Persians, and that the fifteen hundred statues of Demetrius of Phalerum were all taken down by the Athenians in one and the same day.

He will cite first those benefactors of yours, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, describing their fidelity to one another, and telling how in their case this relationship proved the salvation of the state.

and so it was that those benefactors of the state, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, men pre-eminent for their virtues, were so nurtured by that chaste and lawful love—or call it by some other name than love if you like—and so disciplined, that when we hear men praising what they did, we feel that words are inadequate to the eulogy of their deeds.

Aristogeiton later, having been seized and tortured for a long time.

whence it came about that Harmodius and Aristogeiton, provoked, carried out their deed, with many sharing in it.

And at last, since he could not, do what he might, contrive to die, he promised to inform on many others, and persuaded Hippias to give him his right hand as a pledge of faith;

She, being privy to the plot of Harmodius and Aristogeiton against Hipparchus, did not in any way tell of it, though well tortured.

I should like to ask him whether his indictment of the decree was lawful and right or on the other hand unjust and illegal.

Yet just possibly it might then have been more reasonable to trust him and grant him privileges and sacrifice some of these principles.

Yet the former vote, Aristogeiton, was far more lawful and equitable than the vote which you now require the jurors to cast in your favour.

and secondly because the people drew up a law forbidding anyone to speak ill of Harmodius and Aristogeiton or sing disparaging songs about them.

Further, the great Aristogeiton and Harmodius were honored, not because of their birth but because of their bravery, of which you, Dicaeogenes, have no share.

Well, for a while this youth admired both Harmodius and Aristogeiton as wise men, but afterwards, when he associated with Hipparchus, he despised them, and they were so overcome with the pain of this “disqualification” that they slew Hipparchus.