J. E. Sandys, Select Private Orations of Demosthenes

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εἰ παθεῖν τί μοι συνέβη a common euphemism for death. Or. 23 (Aristocr.) § 59 ἂν ἄρα συμβῇ τι παθεῖν ἐκείνῳ. A frequent formula at the beginning of a Greek will was: ἔσται μὲν εὖ, ἐὰν δέ τι συμβαίνῃ, τάδε διατίθεμαι (Diog. Laert. v 2 § 51). Cf. Ciceio, Phil. I § 10 si quid mihi humanitus accidisset, and Sheridan's Rivals, v 3 (just before a duel), ‘In case of an accident, is there any little will or commission I could execute for you?’

γοῦν ‘for instance,’ or, ‘at any rate,’ one person was condemned for such an offence. Tr. ‘The father of the priestess at Brauron, though he confessedly had not laid a finger on the deceased, and merely because he encouraged the assailant to hit him again, was outlawed by the court of the Areopagus.’ P.]

τῆς Βραυρωνόθεν ἱερείας Priestess of Artemis, who was specially worshipped at Brauron, the ancient deme near the western coast of Attica, where Orestes and Iphigenia are said to have landed with the statue of the Taurian goddess. Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, c. xxviii: ‘The daughter of Agamemnon was brought here, as the legend related [Iph. T. 1461], from the gloomy regions of the Taurica Chersonesus, and placed as a priestess of Diana's temple in this cheerful valley, where she was said to have lived and died: and where her supposed tomb was shown in after ages.’ The principal ceremony in the Brauronia, held every five years, was the rite performed by the young girls of Attica, dressed in saffroncoloured attire, who played as bears in honour of the goddess. Ar. Lys. 645 κᾆτ᾽ έχουσα τὸν κροκωτὸν ἄρκτος ἦ Βραυρωνίοις. Leake's Athens II 72, and Dict. Ant. s. v. Brauronia.

πατάξαντι τυπτειν See Excursus (A), p. 234.

ἐξέβαλ᾽ not ‘expelled’ from its own body, but ‘banished’ from the country. A. Schaefer, Dem. u. s. Zeit, III 2, 114 n.

The charge in this case would be one of conspiracy, technically called βούλευσις, ‘procuring or counselling another to wound or kill,’ defined by Forchhammer, de Areopago, p. 30, as ‘id crimen, quo quis, quacunque sit ratione, ipse tamen a necando manus abstinens hominem morti studeat dare.’ Harpocration s. v. says that the term is used ὅταν ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς τίς τινι κατασκευάσῃ θάνατον, ἐάν τε ἀποθάνῃ ὁ ἐπιβουλευθεὶς ἐάν τε μή. He adds that, according to Isaeus and Aristotle, such charges came before the court ἐπὶ Παλλαδίῳ (Const. of Athens, 57 § 3 τῶν δ᾽ ἀκουσίων καὶ βουλεύσεως...οἱ ἐπὶ Παλλαδίῳ), but, according to Demarchus, before the Areopagus,—as in the present instance. The apparent discrepancy as to the tribunal for hearing such cases may be reconciled by the fact that the court at the Palladium was reserved for charges of φόνος ἀκούσιος (Aristocr. § 72), whereas that of the Areopagus had cognisance of φόνος ἐκ προνοίας. See Sauppe, Or. Att. II 235; Meier and Schomann, pp. 384—6, note 532 Lipsius; also the discussion in Zink's Dissertatio pp. 3—10, HermannThumser, Staatsalt. pp. 360, 364; Thalheim, Rechtsalt. p. 52; Gilbert's Gk Const. Antiquities, ed. 2. p. 427 (E. T. p. 381); and Wilamowitz, Arist. u. Athen, i 252 n. 138.

Ἀρείου πἀγου The form Ἀρειόπαγος is apparently only found in late inscriptions. (See note on Isocr. Paneg. § 78 καλοῖς κἀγαθοῖς.)

ἕως ἂν ἀπείπωσιν ‘till they are tired,’ sc. οἱ ἀσελγαίνοντες. Cf. § 27 ἐπειδὴ δ᾽ οὖν ποτ᾽ ἀπεῖπον. Reiske (Index Graec.) is clearly wrong in his rendering deliquerint animis sub verberibus: had the clause referred to the victim, the singular would have heen used, to correspond to τῷ περιπίπτοντι.