Gentlemen of the jury

I do not think, gentlemen of the jury, that even Timocrates can lay the blame of the present prosecution upon anyone else:

for, if there were two inconsistent laws, and if two litigants were contending in this court, whether in a public or a private dispute, and if each of them, by citing a different law, claimed your verdict, you could not of course give judgement in favour of both of them,—that is absurd,—nor could you give your verdict for either without breaking your oath, because such a decision contravenes the o …

For it is the decision that you pronounce on oath on every question which is annulled and made worthless by the law proposed by the defendant;

Each must keep watch and ward lest he shame that goddess, from whom everyone that is chosen by lot derives his name of juror, because he has this day received a sacred trust from the laws, from the constitution, from the fatherland,—the duty of guarding all that is fair and right and beneficial in our city.

Gentlemen of the jury, as I sat here for a long time and listened with you to the speech of Lycurgus for the prosecution, I thought it in general an excellent speech;

To all our courts the juries come to learn from plaintiff and defendant the facts upon which they are to give their votes, and each litigant comes to prove that the legal right is strong on his side.

Do not, gentlemen of the jury, do not betray me or yourselves or the laws.

Those of you who were spectators at the Dionysia hissed and hooted Meidias when he entered the theater;

And yet now, when his guilt has been established, when the people, sitting in a sacred building, have anticipated his condemnation, when all the other crimes of this miscreant have been sifted, when it has fallen to your lot to be his judges and it lies in your power to conclude the whole affair by a single vote—now, I say, will you hesitate to succor me, to gratify the people, to give all a lesso …

For my part, gentlemen of the jury, I beg you most earnestly to show me mercy.

Perhaps there is nothing very surprising, gentlemen of the jury, in my having been taken in like this by Antigone, a woman who was, I am told, the most gifted courtesan of her time and who has continued to practise as a procuress has ruined the house of of the deme Chollidae which was equal to any.

So, to be quite honest with you, gentlemen of the jury, I took her at her word.