Note 453 — Chapter XXXIX · LEGES AND EPINOMIS. (continued 3)

Plato, Legg. xii. p. 944. It is curious to compare this passage of Plato with the two orations of Lysias κατὰ Θεομνήστου A and B (Oratt. x.-xi.). Plato enjoins upon all accusers the greatest caution and precision in the terms used to indicate what they intended to charge upon the accused. To call a man ῥίψασπις is a more aggravated offensive designation than to call him ἀποβολεὺς ὅπλων, which latter term is more general, and may possibly be applied to those who have lost their arms under the pressure of irresistible necessity, without any disgrace. On the other hand, we read in Lysias, that the offence which was punishable under the Attic law was ὅπλων ἀποβολή, and that to assert falsely respecting any citizen, τὰ ὅπλα ἀποβέβληκε, was an ἀπόῤῥητον or forbidden phrase, which exposed the speaker to a fine of 500 drachmæ (sect. 1-12). But to assert respecting any man that he was ῥίψασπις was not expressly ἀπόῤῥητον (compare Lysias cont. Agorat., Or. xiii. ss. 87-89), and the speaker might argue (successfully or not) that he had said nothing ἀπόῤῥητον, and was not guilty of legal κακηγορία. — There is another phrase in this section of Plato to which I would call attention. He enumerates the excusable cases of losing arms as follows — ὁπόσοι κατὰ κρημνῶν ῥιφέντες ἀπώλεσαν ὅπλα ἢ κατὰ θάλατταν (p. 944 A). Now the cases of soldiers being thrown down cliffs are, I believe, unknown until the Phokian prisoners were so dealt with in the Sacred War, as sacrilegious offenders against Apollo and the Delphian temple. Hence we may probably infer that this was composed after the Sacred War began, B.C. 356. See Diodorus and my ‘Hist. of Greece,’ chap. 87, p. 350 seq.