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While the clerk is pre- paring to read the decree, the orator amuses the audience by a few jokes at his opponent's expense. 1. καίτοι, and now: cf. § 123.1.— τίνα βούλει...εἶναι θῶ; whom will you that I shall suppose you, and whom myself, to have been on that day? εἶναι is imperfect infinitive (=ἦσθα) with θῶ, which in this sense takes the infinitive of indirect discourse: cf. Aesch. III. 163, βούλει σε θῶ φοβηθῆναι; See M.T. 287, 288, with the discussion of Plat. Rep. 372 E. 2. βούλει ἐμαυτὸν: sc. θῶ εἶναι;— ὃν ἂν...καλέσαις, i.e. as you would call me, etc. 3. Βάτταλον: this nickname of Demosthenes, which the orator said was given him by his nurse (Aesch. I. 126), probably referred to his lean and sickly look in childhood and youth. See Plut. Dem. 4. 4. μηδ᾽ ἥρω τὸν τυχόντα, not even a hero of the common kind: see note on ὧν ἔτυχεν, § 130.2.—ἀλλὰ...σκηνῆς, but one of those (great) heroes of the stage. 5. Κρεσφόντην, in the Cresphontes of Euripides, in which Merope has the chief part: cf. Arist. Eth. III. 1, 17.—Κρέοντα: Aeschines played Creon in the Antigone of Sophocles as τριταγωνιστής: see XIX. 247, ἐν ἅπασι τοῖς δράμασι τοῖς τραγικοῖς ἐξαίρετόν ἐστιν ὥσπερ γέρας τοῖς τριταγωνισταῖς τὸ τοὺς τυράννους καὶ τοὺς τὰ σκῆπτρα ἔχοντας εἰσιέναι. 6. Οἰνόμαον: i.e. this part in the Oenomaus of Sophocles, which represented the chariot-race of Pelops and Oenomaus, by which Pelops won the hand of Hippodameia. This was the subject of one of the pedimentgroups of the temple of Zeus at Olympia.—κακῶς ἐπέτριψας, you wretchedly murdered (as we say of a bad actor). The anonymous Life of Aeschines (7) gives a story that Aeschines fell on the stage in acting this part. As Oenomaus was finally killed, there is probably a double meaning in κακῶς ἐπέτριψας.—ἐν Κολλυτῷ is an additional slur on the tragic performance of Aeschines. See Aesch. I. 157, πρώην ἐν τοῖς κατ᾽ ἀγροὺς Διονυσίοις κωμῳδῶν ὄντων ἐν Κολλυτῷ. See ἀρουραῖος Οἰνόμαος, § 242.5. 7. τότε refers to time generally: κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν to a critical moment. 8. Οἰνομάου τοῦ Κοθωκίδου: Aes- chines was of the deme Κοθωκίδαι.
Demosthenes de Corona. William Watson Goodwin. 1904. Cambridge University Press.
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