Note 311 — Chapter LVIII · FROM THE RESOLUTION OF THE ATHENIANS TO ATTACK SYRACUSE, DOWN TO THE FIRST WINTER AFTER THEIR ARRIVAL IN SICILY.

Lysias cont. Andokid. init. et fin.; Andokid. de Myster. sect. 29. Compare the fragment of a lost Oration by Lysias against Kinêsias (Fragm. xxxi, p. 490, Bekker; Athenæus, xii, p. 551), where Kinêsias and his friends are accused of numerous impieties, one of which consisted in celebrating festivals on unlucky and forbidden days, “in derision of our gods and our laws,”—ὡς καταλεγῶντες τῶν θεῶν καὶ τῶν νόμων τῶν ἡμετέρων. The lamentable consequences which the displeasure of the gods had brought upon them are then set forth: the companions of Kinêsias had all miserably perished, while Kinêsias himself was living in wretched health and in a condition worse than death: τὸ δ’ οὕτως ἔχοντα τοσοῦτον χρόνον διατελεῖν, καὶ καθ’ ἑκάστην ἡμέραν ἀποθνήσκοντα μὴ δύνασθαι τελευτῆσαι τὸν βίον, τούτοις μόνοις προσήκει τοῖς τὰ τοιαῦτα ἅπερ οὗτος ἐξερματεκόσι.

The comic poets Strattis and Plato also marked out Kinêsias among their favorite subjects of derision and libel, and seem particularly to have represented his lean person and constant ill health as a punishment of the gods for his impiety. See Meineke, Fragm. Comic. Græc. (Strattis), vol. ii, p. 768 (Plato), p. 679.