‘16. Again, you did not rely on the facts sufficiently to allow the question of facts to be settled indisputably by a single trial; you reserved for yourself the right to dispute the judgment, and reopen the case, implying a distrust in the verdict of the present court. The result is that even if I am acquitted I am no better off, since it is open to you to say that I was acquitted on the charge of criminal violence but not on the charge of murder; whereas, if you secure my condemnation you will demand my death on the ground that I have been found guilty of murder. ‘What can surpass the cruelty of such a device by which you, if you can once convince the jury, have attained your object; while I, if I escape your clutches once, find the same danger awaiting me again? ‘17. Again, my imprisonment was a monstrous illegality. I consented to produce three sureties as required by law, but they contrived that I should not be allowed to do so. There is no other instance on record of the imprisonment of a non-Athenian who consented to produce sureties. ‘Yet the officers who have custody of criminals are subject to this same law, so that this is another privilege common to all men which was withheld from me alone. ‘18. Of course, it suited my accusers, firstly, that I should be as unprepared as possible, through being unable to attend to my own business in person, secondly, that I should suffer personal ill-usage, and in consequence of this personal ill-usage find my own friends more ready to bear false witness in support of my accusers than true witness in my support. And so they inflicted a life-long disgrace on me and my family. ‘19. Thus I have been brought to trial handicapped in many ways in relation to your laws and to justice; but even with these disadvantages I shall try to demonstrate my innocence. ‘But it is a hard task to refute at a moment’s notice a number of deliberate falsehoods long-prepared; for it is impossible to be forearmed against unexpected attacks.’ After this long preamble, the speaker at last discusses the accusation (§§ 19 _sqq._), and to some extent deals satisfactorily with the evidence—entirely circumstantial—which has been brought against him. It has already been noticed that, though he casually leaves it to be inferred that he could prove an _alibi_, he lays no stress on the assertion, and is far more concerned with showing that it is ‘improbable’ that he should be a murderer. The final and, apparently, the most important argument is drawn from the absence of divine signs which might have pointed to the speaker’s guilt. He makes no attempt, like the defendant in the First Tetralogy, to suggest other explanations of the crime; many crimes, he says, have before now baffled investigation, and he is only concerned with denying the charge against himself. § 7