On the Murder of Eratosthenes

On the Murder of Eratosthenes is a speech by Lysias, one of the "Canon of Ten" Attic orators. The speech is the first in the transmitted Lysianic corpus and is therefore also known as Lysias 1. The speech was given by a certain Euphiletos, defending himself against the charge that he murdered Eratosthenes, after he supposedly caught him committing adultery with his wife. Euphiletos defends himself claiming that the killing of Eratosthenes was justifiable homicide, rather than murder. The case was heard before the Delphinion, the court which ruled on cases of justifiable homicide.

The speech, which was to be delivered by Euphiletos, is divided into four sections. In the first section, the prooimion (introduction), Lysias has Euphiletos address the jury and introduce the case.

In the second section, the diegesis (account), Lysias has Euphiletos provide a narrative of the events leading to the murder. Lysias has Euphiletos describe how he married, and how his wife was seen by Eratosthenes at her mother-in-law's funeral. According to Euphiletos, Eratosthenes used Euphiletos' slave to persuade his wife to have an affair with him. In a scene which draws heavily on comic tropes, Euphiletos places himself in the role of the bumbling husband, describing how the pair carried out the affair under his nose. Euphiletos then recounts how an unnamed old woman revealed the affair and the existence of Eratosthenes to him and how he confirmed her story by interrogating the slave girl. He then waited until Eratosthenes returned, at which point he gathered his friends, stormed into his bedroom and killed Eratosthenes, declaring, “It is not I who am going to kill you, but our city's law, which you have transgressed and regarded as of less account than your pleasures, choosing rather to commit this foul offence against my wife and my children than to obey the laws like a decent person.”

In the third section, the pisteis (arguments), Lysias has Euphiletos justify his actions legally. Euphiletos argues that he was legally entitled to murder Eratosthenes for committing adultery with his wife, citing several laws whose text is no longer preserved, including one inscribed on a column on the Areopagus. He denies that Eratosthenes was dragged into the house or sought sanctuary at the household hearth - situations under which the murder would not have been legal. Witnesses are summoned to affirm that Eratosthenes confessed and offered monetary compensation, which Euphiletos argues he was under no obligation to accept, "as I held that our city's law should have higher authority." Lysias has Euphiletos defend the law on policy grounds: written law should be enforced so that people can trust it as a guide to how to behave appropriately and more specifically in order to discourage people from adultery. He devotes the remainder of his speech to establishing that the murder was not premeditated and that he had no pre-existing enmity with (or knowledge of) Eratosthenes.

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