Athenian jurors
group · 5 works · 6 mentions · 10 anchored passages
gentlemen of the jury · jury · men of Athens · you · Athenians · audience · body of Athenian jurors · fellow citizens · gentlemen · hearers
in the texts
On the False Embassy
The Athenian citizens sitting in judgment at the scrutiny of the embassy.
For assuredly, men of Athens, when all of you and the whole nation passed censure upon all the results of the peace, when you refused participation in the doings of the Amphictyonic Council, when your attitude towards Philip is still one of anger and suspicion, marking the whole of his conduct as sacrilegious and shameful, as well as unjust and injurious to yourselves,—it would be discreditable th …
Speaking generally, men of Athens, you will doubtless agree that, however many misfortunes have befallen the city, if Aeschines had no hand in them, they ought not to be visited upon him.
So you decreed at that time, men of Athens, agreeably to your achievements.
On the Embassy
The Athenian citizen jury addressed by Aeschines and asked to save him.
And first of all I pray and beseech the gods to save me, and then I beseech you, who hold the verdict in your hands, before whom I have defended myself against every one of the accusations, to the best of my recollection;
but if, with our fatherland safe and no harm done to my fellow citizens, I joined the other ambassadors in singing the paean when the god was being magnified and the Athenians in no wise dishonored, I was doing a pious act and no wrong, and I should justly be acquitted.
Consider, then, one by one, fellow citizens, the possible grounds for my prosecution:
Against Meidias
Athenian citizen-jurors addressed throughout the forensic speech.
In the name of all the gods, Athenians, I ask you to reflect and calculate in your own minds how much more reason I had to be angry when I suffered so at the hands of Meidias, than Euaeon when he killed Boeotus.
Many things, Athenians, some of which the victim would find it difficult to put into words, may be done by the striker—by gesture, by look, by tone;
And, Athenians, I consider that I was prudent, or rather happily inspired, when I submitted at the time and was not impelled to any irremediable action;
On Halonnesus
The Athenian judicial body whose verdict and ratification are contrasted with Philip's desired control over legal outcomes.
Then again he says that he has sent envoys to arrange with you an inter-state legal compact, and that this compact will be valid, not as soon as it is ratified by the body of Athenian jurors, as the law directs, but only after it has been referred to him, thus constituting himself a court of appeal from your decision.
If you cannot preserve your maritime possessions by your might that once saved Hellas, but rely on any jury to whom you refer it, and whose verdict is final, to preserve them for you, provided always that Philip does not buy their votes, is it not an open confession, when you adopt this policy, that you have abandoned everything on the mainland, and are you not advertising to the world that there …
Antidosis
The Athenian judging audience addressed throughout the defense and asked to evaluate Isocrates fairly on evidence.
It causes liars to be looked on with respect, innocent men to be regarded as criminals, and judges to violate their oaths;
Now begin at the point where I start to discuss these matters and read this selection also to the jury.
But for the benefit of the others on the jury I shall attempt to proceed with my selections, after a further word of explanation to enable them to follow more easily what is said.