Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/223

SPEECH OF EURYPTOLEMUS. 201 ft proposition, which he must already have opposed once before, in his capacity of member of the senate. The constitutional impediments having been thus violently overthrown, the question was regularly put by the prytanes to the assembly. At once the clamorous outcry ceased, and those who had raised it resumed their behavior of Athenian citizens, patient hearers of speeches and opinions directly opposed to their own. Nothing is more deserving of notice than this change of demeanor. The champions of the men drowned on the wrecks had resolved to employ as much force as was required to eliminate those pre- liminary constitutional objections, in themselves indisputable, which precluded the discussion. But so soon as the discussion was once begun, they were careful not to give to the resolution the appearance of being carried by force. Euryptolemus, the personal friend of the generals, was allowed not only to move an amendment negativing the proposition of Kallixenus, but also to develop it in a long speech, which Xenophon sets before us. 1 His speech is one of great skill and judgment in reference to the case before him and to the temper of the assembly. Begin- ning with a gentle censure on his friends, the generals Perikles and Diomedon, for having prevailed on their colleagues to abstain from mentioning, in their first official letter, the orders given to Theramenes, he represented them as now in danger of becoming victims to the base conspiracy of the latter, and threw himself upon the justice of the people to grant them a fair trial. He besought the people to take full time to instruct themselves before they pronounced so solemn and irrevocable a sentence ; to trust only to their own judgment, but at the same time to take security that judgment should be pronounced after full informa- tion and impartial hearing, and thus to escape that bitter and unavailing remorse which would otherwise surely follow. Ho proposed that the generals should be tried each separately, according to the psephism of Kannonus, with proper notice, and ample time allowed for the defence as well as for the accusation ; but that, if found guilty, they should suffer the heaviest and most disgraceful penalties, his own relation Perikles the first. This ' Xcnoph. Ilellen. i, 7, 16. M E T il de T a v T a , that is, after the cries and threats atove recounted, uvapuf Ev/w nroAf/iOf cAfev VTTE,-) TW rude, etc.