FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS VOLUME VIII Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at Cleveland, Ohio (Photogravure) Sir John A. Macdonald (Portrait, Photogravure) PAGE Frontispiece 2890 2942 3148 LYSIAS (c. 459-c. 380 B. C.) YSIAS lived in Athens under the Thirty Tyrants, and he derives his greatest importance to students of Greek History from the fact that he prosecuted Eratosthenes -one of the Thirty-for murder. Being a foreigner, unnaturalized, he was not usually allowed to speak in public so that, except the speech against Eratosthenes, all his extant orations were delivered by others, when they were delivered at all. In 412 B. C. Lysias and his brother, Polemarchus, who had inherited a considerable estate from their father, Cephalus, a Syracusan resident of Athens, removed from Thurii to Athens, and when the persecutions under the Thirty Tyrants began, they were managing an extensive factory for making shields. Polemarchus was proscribed and put to death, and Lysias, who had a narrow escape, was driven into exile. After the overthrow of the Thirty, he returned and prosecuted Eratosthenes in a speech of great historical importance, which as it survives to us in its entirety is probably the best example of Attic speeches for the prosecution in murder trials. The date of the birth of Lysias, given by Dionysius of Halicarnassus as 459 B. C., is in dispute, and there is the same uncertainty attaching to the date of his death. Of his greatest political oration, delivered at Olympia, 388 B. C., only a fragment remains. After the expulsion of the Tyrants, he seems to have supported himself writing speeches to be delivered by others in the law courts at Athens, and a very considerable number of these are still extant in their entirety. Of his style, Dionysius of Halicarnassus says that to "write well is given to most men to write winningly, gracefully, and with loveliness, is the gift of Lysias." AGAINST ERATOSTHENES FOR MURDER (Delivered at Athens 403 B. C.) ["Polemarchus, brother of Lysias," writes Professor Jebb, "had been put to death by the Thirty Tyrants. Eratosthenes, one of their number, was the man who had arrested him and taken him to prison. In this speech Lysias, himself the speaker, charges Eratosthenes with the murder of Polemarchus, and, generally, with his share in the tyranny. "Lysias then enters on his narrative of the facts. His father had been invited by Pericles to settle at Athens as a resident-alien, and had lived there peaceably for thirty years. His family had never been involved in any troubles until the time of the Thirty Tyrants. Theognis and Peison, members of that body, suggested the policy of plundering the resident-aliens. These two men first paid a visit to the shield manufactory of Lysias and his brother, and took an inventory of the slaves. The next came to the dwelling house of Lysias, and got all his ready money,-about three talents. He managed to slip away from them, and took refuge with a friend in the Peiræus; then, hearing that his brother Polemarchus had been met in the street by Eratosthenes and taken to prison, he escaped by night to Megara. Polemarchus received the usual mandate of the Thirty,- to drink the hemlock; and had a beggar's burial. Though he and Lysias had yielded such rich plunder, the very earrings were taken from the ears of his wife.» Now the murderer of Polemarchus was Eratosthenes, who is prosecuted by Lysias: -] T is an easy matter, O Athenians! to begin this accusation, but to end it without doing injustice to the cause will be attended with no small difficulty. For the crimes of Eratosthenes are not only too atrocious to describe, but too many to enumerate. No exaggeration can exceed; and within the time. assigned for this discourse, it is impossible fully to represent them. IT This trial, too, is attended with another singularity. In other causes it is usual to ask the accusers: "What is your resentment against the defendants?" But here you must ask the defendants: "What was your resentment against your country?" "What malice did you bear your fellow-citizens?" "Why did you rage with unbridled fury against the State itself?" I say not this, Athenians, as if I had no private misfortunes to lament, no personal injuries to revenge. But a good citizen feels the calamities of his country as sensibly as his own. Both there is good reason to resent, and with both I am justly affected. Nor is it a small source of uneasiness that a man, who never before plead in his own or in any other cause, should be obliged to undertake an accusation on which so much depends. I have felt uncommon anxiety on this account, especially as not only my own interests, but those of my brother, are at stake; and both are unfortunately committed to my artless inexperience. But I shall make you acquainted, Athenians, with the merit of this cause in the shortest and simplest manner. My father Cephalus was engaged to settle in this country, by the persuasion of Pericles, and he continued in it thirty years, without ever appearing before you as plaintiff or defendant. His |