Page:History of Greece Vol VII.djvu/191

173 MEASURES FOR DETECTING THE MUTILATORS. 173 Amidst the mournful dismay spread by the discovery of so unparalleled a sacrilege, it appeared to the Athenian people, as it would have appeared to the ephors at Sparta, or to the rulers in every oligarchical city of Greece, that it was their para- mount and imperative duty to detect and punish the authors. So long as these latter were walking about unknown and unpunished, the temples were defiled by their presence, and the whole city was accounted under the displeasure of the gods, who would inflict upon it heavy public misfortunes. 1 Under this displeasure every citizen felt himself comprehended, so that the sense of public security as well as uf private comfort were alike unap- peased, until the offenders should be discovered and atonement made by punishing or expelling them. Large rewards were accordingly proclaimed to any person who could give information, and even impunity to any accomplice whose confession might lay open the plot. Nor did the matter stop here. Once under this painful shock of religious and political terror, the Athenians became eager talkers and listeners on the subject of other recent acts of impiety. Every one was impatient to tell all that he knew, and more than he knew, about such incidents ; while to exercise any strict criticism upon the truth of such reports, would argue weakness of faith and want of religious zeal, rendering the critic himself a suspected man, " metuunt dubitasse videri." To 1 See the remarkable passage in the contemporary pleading of Antiphon on a trial for homicide (Orat. ii, Tctralog. 1. 1, 10). ^Aav/j.tf>opuv $' vfj.lv iarl rovde fuapov KO.I uvayvov ovra si TO. TEfievr} TUV &EUV slaiovra fitaivsiv T/JV dyvsiav av~uv eni re TU avruf rpaTrefaf I6v~a avyKaTaTrifj.TT2.dvai T ov f av aiTtovf E K y up T o v TUV a I re 11$ opt a i yiyvov-at dvarvxeif i9' at npa^stf Kaftia Tavrai. O IKS lav ovv xp't h v Ttfiupiav ?'/ y rj a a usvcv c, avT& TOVTU rd. TOVTOV uaE@rifj.aTa uvaiJfvraf, Idiav /J.EV TT/V cm^opuv Ka'^asiav 6s TTJV iro^iv K Compare Antiphon, Do Ca3dc Ilcrodis, sect. 83 ad Sopliokles, CEdip. Tyrann. 26, 96, 170, as to the miseries which befell a country, so long as the person guilty of homicide remained to pollute thy ^oi 1, and until he was slain or expelled. Sec also Xcnophon, Hiero, iv, 4, apd Plato, Legg. x, p 885-910, at the beginning and the end of the tenth t>pok. Plato ranks (vj3pt) outrage against sacred objects as the highest ana j*wt ecu ilty species of v(3pif ; deserving the severest punishment. He consider* t??-H the person committing such impiety, unless he be punished or bnu-s^*], -v'sjs evil and the anger of the gods upon the whole population.