In contrast to this flowing style we must notice the quick abrupt succession of short sentences which he sometimes affects, either in the form of question and answer, as in the following fragment, or otherwise:
‘“Did you propose that the slaves should be made free?” “I did, to save the free men from becoming slaves.” “Did you move that the disfranchised citizens should be enfranchised?”—“I did, in order that all in harmony might fight side by side for their country.”’[449]
Still more effective is the following:
‘It is on this account that you have enacted laws to deal separately with every possible offence that a citizen may commit. A man commits sacrilege—prosecution for sacrilege before the king-archon. He neglects his parents—the archon sits on his case. A man proposes an illegal measure—there is the council of the Thesmothetae. He makes himself liable to arrest—the “eleven” are permanent officials.’[450]
Hyperides possessed an active wit which enabled him on many occasions to evade an argument by making his opponent appear ridiculous. Euthias, in prosecuting Phryne for impiety, made his audience shudder by describing the torments of the wicked in Hades. ‘How is Phryne to blame,’ asked Hyperides, ‘for the fact that a stone hangs over the head of Tantalus?’[451] In the Euxenippus, he complains that the process of impeachment before the assembly has been applied to the present case:
‘Impeachment has hitherto been employed against people like Timomachus, Leosthenes, Callistratus, Philon, and Theotimus who lost Sestos—some of them for betraying ships which they commanded, some for betraying cities, and one for giving, as an orator, bad advice to the people.... The present state of affairs is ridiculous—Diognides and Antidorus are impeached for hiring flute-players at a higher price than the law allows; Agasicles of Piraeus is impeached for being registered as of Halimus; and Euxenippus is impeached on account of the dream which he says he dreamed.’[452]
His sarcasm is playful at times, even in serious passages; for instance the following:
‘These Euboeans Demosthenes enrolled as Athenian citizens, and he treats them as his intimate friends; this need not surprise you; naturally enough, since his policy is always ebbing and flowing, he has secured as his friends people from Euripus.’[453]
Another good example of his sarcastic humour appears in the defence of Euxenippus against the charge of Macedonian sympathy:
‘If your assertion (the prosecutor’s) were true, you would not be the only person to know it. In the case of all others who in word or deed favour Philip, their secret is not their own; it is shared by the whole city. The very children in the schools know the names of the orators who are in his pay, of the private persons who entertain and welcome his emissaries, and go out into the streets to meet them on their arrival.’[454]