Oration 43
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- The Lydian, they say, had no troubles, but went out and bought them. Now the Lydian justly had troubles, since he desired them himself; but I, without desiring them, have troubles for no other reason, at the hands of men powerless and envious, than that I seem to cherish you, and that I have done my fatherland some good — having shown her, for honour's sake, the equal of the foremost cities — and that I will do more, if god grants it.
- And I have said this not as an idle boast — for you yourselves know that I have never before made mention of these matters in all the many speeches I have delivered among you — but in defence against those who cast the evil eye upon me and upon you, so that, if it be possible, they may burst with rage — which is best for the whole city — or, if not, may at least be pained. And that the same men who are displeased with me are so toward the city, you yourselves are witnesses, if you will but remember both those who love you and those who hate you. And yet they treat me more fairly than they treat you; for me they accuse here, but you before the tribunal. If, then, I am seen, as is my custom, to make use of Greek examples, do not laugh me to scorn.
- For I do not despise my fatherland, nor do I think you incapable of understanding such things yourselves, nor do I deem either the people or the council uneducated. Most of all, then, I wish you to have a Greek character, and to be neither ungrateful nor unintelligent; but if not, it is at least no worse to listen to such discourses, from which you seem to me likely to become better in character too.
- What, then, is the example? There was a man in Thebes named Epaminondas. He loved his fatherland most of all men; and, seizing such opportunities as then offered, he did her many great benefits. For instead of being cowardly and powerless and subject to others, he made her first among the Greeks and a claimant to the leadership. For then these things were possible, whereas now the times have become different — except that the matters of goodwill and of zeal are ever alike. For traitors and false accusers, and men who do everything against their fellow citizens, existed in the cities then too; and so too did men who loved their fatherlands, and who wished their own citizens to suffer no evil, and who were ambitious to exalt their fatherlands — many of them then accomplishing great things, though now they are able to do lesser goods.
- That Epaminondas, then, was hated by the men unlike him, and there were some who slandered him, while the people, as a people will, were ignorant and easily persuaded. And once one of the desperate and dishonoured men — one who, when the city was enslaved and under a tyranny, had done everything against her — reviled Epaminondas in the assembly, and said many harsh things; for every liar seeks, not to say what is true (since he can say nothing true), but to say what is harsh. And he, rising up, said nothing about the other charges, nor made any defence against any of them, but only this to that man, speaking in his own Boeotian tongue: "May Demeter, then, be wroth with you." And the Thebans, hearing this, were pleased and laughed, and with reason, recalling, I think, his goodwill toward the people and the slanderer's false accusation.
- So I, for my part, if anyone says to me what is unworthy of me — whether straight out or with a show of form, that he may seem an orator, and that too when he is himself no man of decent bearing — will answer him with the answer of Epaminondas. And know well that they do and say these things being burdened by my residence here, for no other reason. For I neither lay snares for any of the citizens, nor take money from anyone, nor am I ready to levy tribute upon your land, nor do I appear in the market-place troublesome to anyone — for I am no orator; nor have I pleaded for anyone except a single unfortunate man, whom I prevented from being torn apart by his kinsmen and guardians, who had first made away with his documents and plundered much of his estate, and afterward bore false witness against him;
- but I have pleaded no other case, so that on no account am I a burden to anyone. Rather, it is so that, if ever there should come an occasion such as some pray for — like the former one, such as will not be (yet, if it should come) — I may not desert the people, and that those who are falsely accused may not lack one to plead their cause or to share their pain. And it is for this that someone finds my residence here hard to bear. For even if there were more such men — as indeed there are — none will say so more than I. But I have toward you a freedom of speech such as no one else has. For of my own good fortune I yielded my share to you, and of your misfortune I took my part.
- And now I must go abroad — not, as before, without grief, all men cherishing and admiring me, but with the enmity of some; though I myself have suffered no harm. For never yet did anyone drive off my cattle, nor my horses. Yet I do not marvel at the present state of affairs; since even that Socrates, of whom I often make mention, under the tyranny of the Thirty did everything on behalf of the people and took part in none of their crimes, but, even when sent by them after Leon of Salamis, did not obey, and reviled the tyrants outright, saying they were like wicked cowherds who, taking over cattle strong and many, make them few and feebler.
- But nonetheless, by that very people for whose sake he had run the risk — and who afterward prospered — he was slandered by certain false accusers and put to death. And his accuser was Meletus, a loathsome man and a false accuser. "Socrates does wrong," he said, "in corrupting the young, and in not honouring the gods whom the city honours, but introducing other new divinities" — well-nigh the very opposite of what Socrates did.
- For he honoured the gods as no other man did, and composed a paean to Apollo and Artemis — the very one I now sing — and not only kept the young from being corrupted, but also reproached the elders and brought it home to them, if any was insatiable or licentious, or made profit out of the city's affairs — acquitting some for money, falsely accusing others, plundering the wretched islanders on the pretext of tribute or of the levying of soldiers, as some men do among us.
- Hating him for these things, they said he corrupted the young. But my indictment was well-nigh greater and nobler — a secret one, as it seems: "Dion does wrong, in not honouring the gods, neither in sacrifices nor in hymns, dissolving the ancestral festivals; and in having persuaded a wicked governor to put the people to the torture and to drive out as many as he could, and even to kill some, having forced upon them the necessity of dying willingly, because, being old, they could neither flee nor endure to leave their fatherland; and in co-operating now too in everything with the man who tyrannized over the province, and in contriving, so far as in him lies, that that man shall acquit himself well and take over the cities by force, and shall reduce the peoples to subjection;
- and in corrupting the people, himself setting up as their accuser, and transgressing by his own words and tongue against the citizens, against the commons; and in doing many other things which I am ashamed to recount one by one; and in offering himself as a wicked example, to younger and elder alike, of idleness and luxury and faithlessness; and in bribing the multitude, so that no one may bring up against him the things then done, but that they may make a kind of forgetfulness of his hatred and his plotting." Come, then, let me make my defence against these charges, men of Prusa; and if, having heard, it seem good to you, condemn me — for the Athenians too, having heard Socrates, condemned him.