People had disagreed about the wording of the verse: some said it was not plague (loimos) but famine (limos) that was foretold by the ancients; but on this occasion, naturally, the victory went to those who said ‘plague,’ for people made their memory suit their current experience. Surely, I think if there is another Dorian war after this one, and if a famine comes with it, it will be natural for them to recite the verse in that version.

Those who knew of it also recalled an oracle that was given to the Lacedaemonians when they asked the god [Apollo] whether they should start this war or not. The oracle had said: they would win if they fought with all their might, and that he himself would take their part. Then they thought that their present misery was a fulfillment of the prophecy; the plague did begin immediately when the Peloponnesians invaded, and it had no appreciable effect in the Peloponnesus, but preyed mostly on Athens and after that in densely populated areas. So much for the plague.

THE MURDER OF ERATOSTHENES

On the Murder of Eratosthenes

Lysias

Translated by S. C. Todd, 2011

This is a gripping tale of murder embedded in a speech by Lysias (c. 445 BC–c. 380 BC), one of the great orators of ancient Athens. Euphiletus stands accused of killing Eratosthenes for having an affair with his wife. The defendant, the narrator of this piece, maintains that his act was justified by Athenian law, which he cites as permitting a man to kill with impunity an adulterer caught in the act with his wife. Did Euphiletus get away with the murder? Frustratingly we do not know. But it is worth noting that the murdered Eratosthenes was one of the Thirty Tyrants who subjected Athens to harsh rule after its defeat in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC.

After I decided to get married, men of Athens, and brought my bride home, for a while my attitude was not to trouble her too much but not to let her do whatever she wanted either. I watched her as best I could and gave her the proper amount of attention. But from the moment my son was born, I began to have full confidence in her and placed everything in her hands, reckoning that this was the best relationship. In those early days, men of Athens, she was the best of women: a good housekeeper, thrifty, with a sharp eye on every detail. But my mother’s death was the cause of all my troubles. For it was while attending her funeral that my wife was seen by this fellow and eventually corrupted by him: he kept an eye out for the slave girl who did the shopping, put forward proposals, and seduced her.