Tag: Forensic Speech

Will Eyewitnesses to Injustice Spare This Man?

~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 1 Comment

Dinarchus, Against Philocles 110 14-15

“Citizens, you need to remember these things and not take lightly all the information made public by the council—act here as you have in cases judged before. It is shameful to tire of punishing people who have proved themselves traitors to the state and shameful that any insurrectionists and wicked people should be left out there when the gods have clearly shown their true nature and handed them over to you to be punished.

You have seen that the whole electorate accuses this man and now they have given him to you before all the others to get what he deserves.

Sweet Zeus, Savior! I am ashamed that you need us to force you, to push you on to bring punishment to this person who has already been judged. Aren’t you all eyewitnesses of the injustices he committed? Because all the people believe he is neither just nor safe to be trusted with children they rejected him as guardian of the youth. Will you very protectors of the democracy and the laws—those people chance and fortune have given the power of justice over our people—will you spare a man who has attempted these kinds of things?”

ὧν ἀναμιμνησκομένους ὑμᾶς, ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, δεῖ μὴ παρέργως ἔχειν πρὸς τὰς ὑπὸ τῆς βουλῆς γεγενημένας ἀποφάσεις, ἀλλ᾿ ἀκολούθως ταῖς πρότερον κεκριμέναις· αἰσχρὸν γὰρ ἀπειπεῖν τιμωρουμένους ἐστὶ τοὺς προδότας τῆς πόλεως γεγενημένους, καὶ ὑπολείπεσθαί τινας τῶν ἀδίκων καὶ πονηρῶν ἀνθρώπων, ὅτε οἱ θεοὶ φανεροὺς ὑμῖν ποιήσαντες παρέδοσαν τιμωρήσασθαι, ἑορακότες τὸν δῆμον ἅπαντα κατήγορον τούτου γεγενημένον καὶ προκεχειρικότα πρῶτον τῶν ἄλλων ἐπὶ τὸ τὴν τιμωρίαν ἐν ὑμῖν δοῦναι.

Ἀλλ᾿ ἔγωγε, νὴ τὸν Δία τὸν σωτῆρα, αἰσχύνομαι, εἰ προτραπέντας ὑμᾶς δεῖ4 καὶ παροξυνθέντας ὑφ᾿ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ νῦν εἰσεληλυθότος τὴν κρίσιν τιμωρίαν ἐλθεῖν. [καὶ] οὐκ αὐτόπται ἐστὲ τῶν ὑπὸ τούτου γεγενημένων ἀδικημάτων; καὶ ὁ μὲν δῆμος ἅπας οὔτ᾿ ἀσφαλὲς οὔτε δίκαιον νομίζων εἶναι παρακαταθέσθαι τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ παῖδας ἀπεχειροτόνησεν αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν ἐφήβων ἐπιμελείας,  ὑμεῖς δ᾿ οἱ τῆς δημοκρατίας καὶ τῶν νόμων φύλακες, οἷς ἡ τύχη καὶ ὁ κλῆρος . . . ὑπὲρ τοῦ δήμου δικάσοντας ἐπέτρεψεν;

Xenophon, Socrates’ Apology (26): Palamedes is Better than Odysseus, Like Me

~ sententiaeantiquae ~ 5 Comments

“The fact that I will die unjustly shouldn’t burden my thoughts. No, this is a matter of shame for those who convicted me. The case of Palamedes, who died like me, provides some comfort. For even now he furnishes more beautiful songs than that Odysseus who killed him unjustly. So I know that it will be known on my part in the future as time passes that I did nothing wrong and that I never corrupted any man—instead, I have worked hard on the behalf of those I encounter, teaching them whatever good I can.”

ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ μέντοι ὅτι ἀδίκως ἀποθνῄσκω, διὰ τοῦτο μεῖον φρονητέον• οὐ γὰρ ἐμοὶ ἀλλὰ τοῖς καταγνοῦσι τοῦτο αἰσχρόν [γάρ] ἐστι. παραμυθεῖται δ’ ἔτι με καὶ Παλαμήδης ὁ παραπλησίως ἐμοὶ τελευτήσας• ἔτι γὰρ καὶ νῦν πολὺ καλλίους ὕμνους παρέχεται ᾿Οδυσσέως τοῦ ἀδίκως ἀποκτείναντος αὐτόν• οἶδ’ ὅτι καὶ ἐμοὶ μαρτυρήσεται ὑπό τε τοῦ ἐπιόντος καὶ ὑπὸ τοῦ παρεληλυθότος χρόνου ὅτι ἠδίκησα μὲν οὐδένα πώποτε οὐδὲ πονηρότερον ἐποίησα, εὐηργέτουν δὲ τοὺς ἐμοὶ διαλεγομένους προῖκα διδάσκων ὅ τι ἐδυνάμην ἀγαθόν.

In the Trojan War tradition Palamedes is the one who tricks Odysseus to showing he isn’t insane when Agamemnon and Nestor arrive in Ithaca to bring him to war. Once they get to Troy, Odysseus frames Palamedes as a traitor and arranges to have him stoned to death. According to fragments and ancient scholiasts, the major tragedians each had plays on Palamedes. We have none of them. Plato has Socrates mention Palamedes too (Apology 41b):

“Then it would be a wondrous way for me to spend my time there [in the afterlife], whenever I would meet Palamedes or Telemonian Ajax or if there is any other of the ancients who died thanks to an unjust judgment, I could compare the things I have suffered to what they did…”

ἐπεὶ ἔμοιγε καὶ αὐτῷ θαυμαστὴ ἂν εἴη ἡ διατριβὴ αὐτόθι, ὁπότε ἐντύχοιμι Παλαμήδει καὶ Αἴαντι τῷ Τελαμῶνος καὶ εἴ τις ἄλλος τῶν παλαιῶν διὰ κρίσιν ἄδικον τέθνηκεν, ἀντιπαραβάλλοντι τὰ ἐμαυτοῦ πάθη πρὸς τὰ ἐκείνων…

The details are different-—notice the inclusion of another anti-Odysseus figure in Ajax—-but the tone is the same (Socrates enrolling himself in a list of wronged heroes). Plato’s Socrates seems a bit bolder, though, as he imagines hanging out with the unjustly dead.