This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
[12]
nursed as he was, in licence, still thought that at the moment of
his greatest good fortune1
he ought to be seen acting with the greatest humanity and did not venture to cast into
chains the men who had faced him in the battle line, against whom he had staked his all,
nor demand to know, “Whose sons are they and what are their
names?”2 For unlike some of
your orators, as it appears, he did not consider it would be either just or creditable to
take the same action against all, but, taking into his reckoning the additional factor of
station in life,3 he assorted his
verdicts accordingly.
1 The battle of Chaeronea, 338 B.C.; the Greeks magnified its importance. Their liberty was lost by degrees, not suddenly.
2 An Athenian citizen was identified by three items: his own name, his father's name, and his deme.
3 Antiatticista cites this passage under ἀξία: ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀξίωμα Bekker, 1. p. 77. 17-18. Ἀξία equals Latin dignitas, the degree of distinction possessed by virtue of birth or achievement or both.
Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
