Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/128

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS banished or deprived of civil rights, and he or others may perhaps consider these as mighty evils; I, however, do not consider them so, but that it is much more so to do what he is now doing—to endeavor to put a man to death unjustly.

Now, therefore, O Athenians, I am far from making a defense on my own behalf, as any one might think, but I do so on your behalf, lest by condemning me you should offend at all with respect to the gift of the deity to you. For, if you should put me to death, you will not easily find such another, tho it may be ridiculous to say so, altogether attached by the deity to this city as to a powerful and generous horse, somewhat sluggish from his size, and requiring to be roused by a gad-fly; so the deity appears to have united me, being such a person as I am, to the city, that I may rouse you, and persuade and reprove every one of you, nor ever cease besetting you throughout the whole day. Such another man, O Athenians, will not easily be found; therefore, if you will take my advice, you will spare me.

But you, perhaps, being irritated, like drowsy persons who are roused from sleep, will strike me, and, yielding to Anytus, will unthinkingly condemn me to death; and then you will pass the rest of your life in sleep, unless the deity, caring for you, should send some one else to you. But that I am a person who has been given by the deity to this city, you may discern from hence: for it is not like the ordinary conduct 70