Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/369

 MEIDIAS INSULTS DEMOSTHENES. 343 Ifle news brought by JEschines (before the Dionysiac festival) di the victory of Tamynce, relieved the Athenians from great anxiety. On the former despatch from Phokion, the Senate had resolved to send to Eubcea another armament, including the remaining half of the cavalry, a reinforcement of hoplites, and a fresh squadron of triremes. But the victory enabled them to dispense l with any immediate reinforcement, and to celebrate the Dionysiac festival with cheerfulness. The festival was on this year of more than usual notoriety. Demosthenes, serving in it as choregus for his tribe the Pandionis, was brutally insulted, in the theatre and amid the full pomp of the ceremony, by his enemy the wealthy Meidias ; who, besides other outrages, struck him several times with his fist on the head. The insult was the more poignant, because Meidias at this time held the high office of Hipparch, or one of the com- manders of the horse. It was the practice at Athens to convene a public assembly immediately after the Dionysiac festival, for the special purpose of receiving notifications and hearing complaints about matters which had occurred at the festival itself. At this special assembly Demosthenes preferred a complaint against Mei- dias for the unwarrantable outrage offered, and found warm sym- pathy among the people, who passed a unanimous vote of cen- sure. This procedure (called Probole, did not by itself carry any punishment, but served as a sort of prcejucKcium, or finding of a true bill ; enabling Demosthenes to quote the public as a witness to the main fact of insult, and encouraging him to pursue Meidias before the regular tribunals ; which he did a few months after- wards, but was induced to accept from Meidias the self-imposed fine of thirty minai before the final passing of sentence by the Dikasts.2 The treason of Kallias and Taurosthenes is alluded to by Deinarchus in his harangue against Demosthenes, s. 45. 1 Demosthenes cont. Meidiam, p. 567. 8 ^Eschines cont. Ktesiph. p. 61 ; Plutarch, Demosth. c. 12. Westermann and many other critics (De Litibus quas Demosthenes oravit ipse, p. 25- 28) maintain that the discourse against Meidias can never have been really spoken by Demosthenes to the Dikastery, since if it had been spoken, he itould not afterwards have entered into the compromise. But it is surely possible, that he may have delivered the discourse and obtained judgment in his favor ; and then afterwards when the second vote of the Dikasts was about to come on, for estimation of the penalty may have accepter]