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 POLITICS OF LYSIAS 339 of Polemarchus, though not in his condemnation to death. There was nothing else against him, and he seems to have been acquitted. The speech Against Agordtus takes a curious ground about the amnesty. Agoratus had practised as an in- former in 405 and 404, and falsely claimed the reward for slaying Phrynichus. This shows, argues Lysias, that he was a democrat. The amnesty was only made- by the Demos with the oligarchs, and does not apply between two democrats ! In" a similar partisan spirit Lysias persecutes the younger Alcibiades. His offence was that he served in the cavalry instead of the heavy infantry. He claims that he had special permission, and it would be hard to imagine a more venial offence. But the father's memory stank in the nostrils of the radicals, and the act savoured of aristocratic assumption. Lysias indicts him in two separate speeches — first, for desertion, and secondly, for failure to serve in the army, invoking the severest possible penalty ! After these speeches, and that Against the Corn-Dealers^ and the markedly unfair special pleading Against Enandros, it is difficult to reject other documents in the Lysian collection on the ground of their 'sycophantic tone.' Lysias is especially praised in antiquity for his power of entering into the character of every different client and making his speech sound ' natural,' not bought. His catholicity of sympathy may even seem unscrupu- lous, but it has Hmits. He cannot really conceive an honest oligarch. When he has to speak for one, as in 25, he makes him frankly cynical : " / used to be an oligarch because it suited my interests ; now it suits me to be a democrat. Every one acts on the same principle. The important point is that I have not broken the lai<"!'