‘Justice and Piety will be satisfied, men of Athens, by the prosecution which I shall institute, on your behalf and on behalf of the gods, against the defendant Leocrates. For I pray to Athena and the other gods, and to the heroes whose statues stand in the city and in the country, that if I have justly impeached Leocrates; if I am bringing to trial the betrayer of their temples, their shrines and their sanctuaries, and the sacrifices ordained by the laws, handed down to you by your forefathers, they may make me to-day a prosecutor worthy of his offences, as the interests of the people and the city demand; and that you, remembering that your deliberations are concerned with your fathers, your children, your wives, your country, and your religion, and that you have at the mercy of your vote the man who betrayed them all, may prove relentless judges, both now and for all time to come, in dealing with offenders of this kind and degree. But if the man whom I bring to trial before this assembly is not one who has betrayed his fatherland and deserted the city and her holy observances, I pray that he may be saved from this danger both by the gods and by you, his judges.’[431] Passages later in the speech deepen this impression, and contain definite statements of belief which we cannot disregard: ‘For the first act of the gods is to lead astray the mind of the wicked man; and I think that some of the ancient poets were prophets when they left behind them for future generations such lines as these: For when God’s wrath afflicteth any man, By his own act his wits are led astray, And his straight judgment warped to crooked ways, That, sinning, he may know not of his sin. ‘The older men among you remember, the younger have heard, the story of Callistratus, whom the city condemned to death. He fled the country, and hearing the god at Delphi declare that if he went to Athens he would obtain his due, he came here, and took sanctuary at the altar of the twelve gods; but none the less he was put to death by the city. ‘This was just; for a criminal’s due is punishment. And the god rightly gave up the wrong-doer to be punished by those whom he had wronged; for it would be strange if he revealed the same signs to the pious and the wicked.’ ‘But I am of opinion, Gentlemen, that the god’s care watches over every human action, particularly those concerned with our parents and the dead, and our pious duty towards them; and naturally so, for they are the authors of our being, and have conferred innumerable blessings on us, so that it is an act of monstrous impiety, I will not say to sin against them, but even to refuse to squander our own lives in benefiting them.’[432] The following fragment deserves quotation as an example of his dignified severity: