In the oration against the Athenians, delivered by the Syracusan Hermokratês at Kamarina, Athens is accused of having enslaved her allies partly on the ground that they neglected to perform their military obligations, partly because they made war upon each other (Thucyd. vi, 76), partly also on other specious pretences. How far this charge against Athens is borne out by the fact, we can hardly say; in all those particular examples which Thucydidês mentions of subjugation of allies by Athens, there is a cause perfectly definite and sufficient,—not a mere pretence devised by Athenian ambition. [77] According to the principle laid down by the Corinthians shortly before the Peloponnesian war,—τοὺς προσήκοντας ξυμμάχους αὐτόν τινα κολάζειν (Thucyd. i, 40-43). The Lacedæmonians, on preferring their accusation of treason against Themistoklês, demanded that he should be tried at Sparta, before the common Hellenic synod which held its sitting there, and of which Athens was then a member: that is, the Spartan confederacy, or alliance,—ἐπὶ τοῦ κοινοῦ συνεδρίου τῶν Ἑλλήνων (Diodor. xi, 55). Among the thousand towns which paid tribute to Athens,—taking this numerical statement of Aristophanês, not in its exact meaning, but simply as a great number,—if a small town, or one of its citizens, had cause of complaint against a larger, there was no channel except the synod of Delos, or the Athenian tribunal, through which it could have any reasonable assurance of fair trial or justice. It is not to be supposed that all the private complaints and suits between citizen and citizen, in each respective subject town, were carried up for trial to Athens: yet we do not know distinctly how the line was drawn between matters carried up thither and matters tried at home. The subject cities appear to have been interdicted from the power of capital punishment, which could only be inflicted after previous trial and condemnation at Athens:[78] so that the latter reserved to herself the cognizance of most of the grave crimes,—or what may be called “the higher justice” generally. And the political accusations preferred by citizen against citizen, in any subject city, for alleged treason, corruption, non-fulfilment of public duty, etc., were doubtless carried to Athens for trial,—perhaps the most important part of her jurisdiction. [78] Antipho, De Cæde Herôdis, c. 7, p. 135. ὃ οὐδὲ πόλει ἔξεστιν, ἄνευ Ἀθηναίων οὐδένα θανάτῳ ζημιῶσαι.