Did you have some teacher who said something similar to, “Think of this test as a lesson. It will allow you to consolidate your knowledge by giving you a chance to rethink what you learned”? The general idea is that a review of both your correct and incorrect answers will enable your long-term memory to absorb the information or ideas. So, let’s put this to the test by offering a test and a post-test discussion.
Who said the following?
1. “For formerly it was necessary for the accusers to show the enmity which they had toward the accused; but now it is necessary to ask from the accused what enmity they had toward the state, on account of which they venture to do such wrongs to it. But I do not use these words as if not having private enmities and misfortunes, but as if there were plenty of reason for all to be angry, on account of their private and public affairs.”
____________
2. “My father…was persuaded by ______ to come to this land, and lived there thirty years; and neither we nor he ever brought an accusation against anybody, or were accused ourselves; but we lived in such a manner under the Democracy, that we neither wronged others nor were wronged by others. But when the ______, being villains and sycophants, where established in power, affirming that it was necessary to rid the city of those doing wrong, and turn the remaining citizens to virtue and justice there was very good pretext to seem to punish them, but in reality to get their money, for the city was poor…and the government needed money…[They went to my house where] they found me entertaining guests…[To avoid imprisonment and possibly death] I asked _____ if he was willing to save me, taking a bribe…[but he took all my money and possessions and] said I should be happy that I still had my life.”
____________
ANSWER for both: LYSIAS, author of The Orations of Lysias
It was during the Second Peloponnesian War that Sparta gained control of Athens and installed an oligarchy that ran like a linebacker into the remaining democratic populace. The installation of The Thirty began a period of vengeance for vengeance’s sake and for acquiring what belonged to others who were out of favor. These thirty oligarchs exerted control by thievery, exile, and even murder.
Many members of Athenian society had their lives ruined simply by groundless accusations by those in power. Lysias’ brother died at the hands of Eratosthenes (not the famous geographer who lived much later), so he went into the public judicial system of the times to accuse the murderer and seek justice for his brother, his family, and himself. Oration XII is his personal account of the affair, and the quotations above are his loosely translated words. *
I’m not sure how you might relate to these quotations, but I find them very much relevant to our own times. Sure, we hear of the Russian oligarchs, but they live in a country where nothing but a superficial semblance of democracy and freedom exists. But in the West, and especially in the United States, democracy, that is the democracy of a Republic, supposedly ensures freedoms not found outside western style governments. I say “supposedly” because we’ve entered an age that is in some ways parallel to the post-Peloponnesian War period in ancient Greece.
And in that period accusations were as much condemnations as they are today—and they were so without the aid of Twitter, FaceBook, TikTok, and other avenues of vengeance and hatred.
Lysias’ father had been encouraged to move to Athens by the great Pericles, so as a child and young man he knew something about the Golden Age of Greece, especially about the Athens of the Acropolis with its magnificent Parthenon and the nearby agora, or marketplace. No doubt, of course, that, human vices being what they are, there had been squabbles and accusations thrown about during that Golden Age as Socrates' enforced suicide attests, but generally, nothing then matched the time of the Thirty Tyrants and the subsequent Councils of 40 and 5,000 members.
In that progression of tyranny posing as democracy, we can see an analog of today’s big government bureaucracy in which agencies “make laws” driven by special interest agendas. And in the attempt to restore what had been Athens’ glory, the burgeoning government that went from 30 to 5,000 rulers meant a multiplying of special interests, bickering parties, and wild accusations as various factions vied through ad hominem attacks for power over the purse. Except for modern technology, Lysias’ world wasn’t much different from today’s.
Regardless of relative stability of the United States government, we always find ourselves in the tug of war between oligarchic tendencies and democratic freedoms. Take, for example, the First Amendment and its many challenges by those who would quash speech advocating a different point of view. In the current Administration, free speech means speech that is preferred speech, and that can be demonstrated by the Justice Department’s raid on the home of a Pennsylvanian man whose pro-life stance seems to have offended the powers that be, an intellectual oligarchy that quashes opposition through government retribution.
Throughout American history, the party out of power has felt suppressed by the party in power, and the “outs” have felt persecuted and wronged by the “ins.” With regard to the FACE Act, the current Department of Justice chose to send an armed contingent to the home of Mark Houck, arresting him on a charge that comes with an 11-year prison term and $350,000 in fines. Recently, a jury found him innocent of all charges, but his life, like the life of Lysias more than two millennia ago, has been altered, and his children, witnesses to the late-night door-breaking arrest by agents in full battle gear, will be forever distrustful of the US DOJ, now used for political reasons. Could Houck echo the words that Lysias hears from the armed home intruders backed by the government that he could “still be happy” because, in the case of Houck, the DOJ, though taking his reputation, money, time, and feeling of being secure in his home, yet allowed him to have his life? Will the DOJ apologize for the heavy-handed arrest? Will any government official acknowledge vindictiveness and inappropriate behavior that unbalance the scales of justice in favor of a ruling oligarchy?
Houck was, as Lysias was, unaware that he was about to be accosted in his own home, Houck in the middle of the night and Lysias in the middle of a party. The unwarranted and heavy-handed attack ordered by the DOJ was disproportionate to the alleged crime. Houck, a pro-lifer was exercising his free speech right; in contrast, only two people who actually destroyed property belonging to pro-life agencies have been arrested, and they were so without the threat of violence shown at the Houck home.
We’ve seen the same kind of overreach by an oligarchic government in the Elián González and Waco incidents and in the use of armed forces to invade Trump’s Florida home. No such heavy-handed tactics were used at either the Biden or the Pence homes over “classified” documents.
Lysias, Houck, and others so treated are victims of the political pendulum that swings in every society professing democratic principles. Will the back-and-forth swings between oligarchy and democracy ever cease swinging? The lesson is that the pendulum will swing in the future as it swung in the deep past.
*Project Gutenberg. Online. The Orations of Lysias.
Who said the following?
1. “For formerly it was necessary for the accusers to show the enmity which they had toward the accused; but now it is necessary to ask from the accused what enmity they had toward the state, on account of which they venture to do such wrongs to it. But I do not use these words as if not having private enmities and misfortunes, but as if there were plenty of reason for all to be angry, on account of their private and public affairs.”
____________
2. “My father…was persuaded by ______ to come to this land, and lived there thirty years; and neither we nor he ever brought an accusation against anybody, or were accused ourselves; but we lived in such a manner under the Democracy, that we neither wronged others nor were wronged by others. But when the ______, being villains and sycophants, where established in power, affirming that it was necessary to rid the city of those doing wrong, and turn the remaining citizens to virtue and justice there was very good pretext to seem to punish them, but in reality to get their money, for the city was poor…and the government needed money…[They went to my house where] they found me entertaining guests…[To avoid imprisonment and possibly death] I asked _____ if he was willing to save me, taking a bribe…[but he took all my money and possessions and] said I should be happy that I still had my life.”
____________
ANSWER for both: LYSIAS, author of The Orations of Lysias
It was during the Second Peloponnesian War that Sparta gained control of Athens and installed an oligarchy that ran like a linebacker into the remaining democratic populace. The installation of The Thirty began a period of vengeance for vengeance’s sake and for acquiring what belonged to others who were out of favor. These thirty oligarchs exerted control by thievery, exile, and even murder.
Many members of Athenian society had their lives ruined simply by groundless accusations by those in power. Lysias’ brother died at the hands of Eratosthenes (not the famous geographer who lived much later), so he went into the public judicial system of the times to accuse the murderer and seek justice for his brother, his family, and himself. Oration XII is his personal account of the affair, and the quotations above are his loosely translated words. *
I’m not sure how you might relate to these quotations, but I find them very much relevant to our own times. Sure, we hear of the Russian oligarchs, but they live in a country where nothing but a superficial semblance of democracy and freedom exists. But in the West, and especially in the United States, democracy, that is the democracy of a Republic, supposedly ensures freedoms not found outside western style governments. I say “supposedly” because we’ve entered an age that is in some ways parallel to the post-Peloponnesian War period in ancient Greece.
And in that period accusations were as much condemnations as they are today—and they were so without the aid of Twitter, FaceBook, TikTok, and other avenues of vengeance and hatred.
Lysias’ father had been encouraged to move to Athens by the great Pericles, so as a child and young man he knew something about the Golden Age of Greece, especially about the Athens of the Acropolis with its magnificent Parthenon and the nearby agora, or marketplace. No doubt, of course, that, human vices being what they are, there had been squabbles and accusations thrown about during that Golden Age as Socrates' enforced suicide attests, but generally, nothing then matched the time of the Thirty Tyrants and the subsequent Councils of 40 and 5,000 members.
In that progression of tyranny posing as democracy, we can see an analog of today’s big government bureaucracy in which agencies “make laws” driven by special interest agendas. And in the attempt to restore what had been Athens’ glory, the burgeoning government that went from 30 to 5,000 rulers meant a multiplying of special interests, bickering parties, and wild accusations as various factions vied through ad hominem attacks for power over the purse. Except for modern technology, Lysias’ world wasn’t much different from today’s.
Regardless of relative stability of the United States government, we always find ourselves in the tug of war between oligarchic tendencies and democratic freedoms. Take, for example, the First Amendment and its many challenges by those who would quash speech advocating a different point of view. In the current Administration, free speech means speech that is preferred speech, and that can be demonstrated by the Justice Department’s raid on the home of a Pennsylvanian man whose pro-life stance seems to have offended the powers that be, an intellectual oligarchy that quashes opposition through government retribution.
Throughout American history, the party out of power has felt suppressed by the party in power, and the “outs” have felt persecuted and wronged by the “ins.” With regard to the FACE Act, the current Department of Justice chose to send an armed contingent to the home of Mark Houck, arresting him on a charge that comes with an 11-year prison term and $350,000 in fines. Recently, a jury found him innocent of all charges, but his life, like the life of Lysias more than two millennia ago, has been altered, and his children, witnesses to the late-night door-breaking arrest by agents in full battle gear, will be forever distrustful of the US DOJ, now used for political reasons. Could Houck echo the words that Lysias hears from the armed home intruders backed by the government that he could “still be happy” because, in the case of Houck, the DOJ, though taking his reputation, money, time, and feeling of being secure in his home, yet allowed him to have his life? Will the DOJ apologize for the heavy-handed arrest? Will any government official acknowledge vindictiveness and inappropriate behavior that unbalance the scales of justice in favor of a ruling oligarchy?
Houck was, as Lysias was, unaware that he was about to be accosted in his own home, Houck in the middle of the night and Lysias in the middle of a party. The unwarranted and heavy-handed attack ordered by the DOJ was disproportionate to the alleged crime. Houck, a pro-lifer was exercising his free speech right; in contrast, only two people who actually destroyed property belonging to pro-life agencies have been arrested, and they were so without the threat of violence shown at the Houck home.
We’ve seen the same kind of overreach by an oligarchic government in the Elián González and Waco incidents and in the use of armed forces to invade Trump’s Florida home. No such heavy-handed tactics were used at either the Biden or the Pence homes over “classified” documents.
Lysias, Houck, and others so treated are victims of the political pendulum that swings in every society professing democratic principles. Will the back-and-forth swings between oligarchy and democracy ever cease swinging? The lesson is that the pendulum will swing in the future as it swung in the deep past.
*Project Gutenberg. Online. The Orations of Lysias.
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