and illegitimate, were deprived of the citizenship; and the citizen
who should adopt any descendant of either of them, was to be himself
in like manner disfranchised.
[122] Thucyd. viii, 68; Aristotel. Ethic. Eudem. iii, 5.
Rühnken seems quite right (Dissertat. De Antiphont. p. 818,
Reisk.) in considering the oration περὶ μεταστάσεως to be
Antiphon’s defence of himself; though Westermann (Geschichte der
Griech. Beredsamkeit, p. 277) controverts this opinion. This
oration is alluded to in several of the articles in Harpokration.
[123] So, Themistoklês, as a traitor, was not allowed to be
buried in Attica (Thucyd. i, 138; Cornel. Nepos, Vit. Themistocl.
ii, 10). His friends are said to have brought his bones thither
secretly.
Such was the sentence passed by the dikastery, pursuant to the
Athenian law of treason. It was directed to be engraved on the same
brazen column as the decree of honor to the slayers of Phrynichus.
From that column it was transcribed, and has thus passed into
history.[124]
[124] It is given at length in Pseudo-Plutarch, Vit. x, Oratt.
pp. 833, 834. It was preserved by Cæcilius, a Sicilian and
rhetorical teacher, of the Augustan age; who possessed sixty
orations ascribed to Antiphon, twenty-five of which he considered
spurious.
Antiphon left a daughter, whom Kallæschrus sued for in marriage,
pursuant to the forms of law, being entitled to do so on the
score of near relationship (ἐπεδικάσατο). Kallæschrus was himself
one of the Four Hundred, perhaps a brother of Kritias. It seems
singular that the legal power of suing at law for a female
in marriage, by right of near kin (τοῦ ἐπιδικάζεσθαι), could
extend to a female disfranchised and debarred from all rights of
citizenship.
If we may believe Harpokration, Andron, who made the motion in
the senate for sending Antiphon and Archeptolemus to trial, had
been himself a member of the Four Hundred oligarchs, as well as
Theramenês (Harp. v. Ἄνδρων).
The note of Dr. Arnold upon that passage (viii, 68) wherein
Thucydidês calls Antiphon ἀρετῇ οὐδενὸς ὕστερος, “inferior to
no man in virtue,” well deserves to be consulted. This passage
shows, in a remarkable manner, what were the political and
private qualities which determined the esteem of Thucydidês.
It shows that his sympathies went along with the oligarchical
party; and that, while the exaggerations of opposition-speakers,
or demagogues, such as those which he imputes to Kleon and
Hyperbolus, provoked his bitter hatred, exaggerations of the
oligarchical warfare, or multiplied assassinations, did not
make him like a man the worse. But it shows, at the same time,
his great candor in the narration of facts: for he gives an
undisguised revelation both of the assassinations, and of the
treason, of Antiphon.
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