have been chastised according to precedent, and by the regular course of justice.  In the next place, it will be right to deny that it is proper to listen to the charge which is brought by the accused person against his victim, when he who brings it did not choose to submit it to the decision of the judges, and it may be urged that one ought to consider that on which no decision has been pronounced, as if it had not been done, and after that to point out the impudence of those men who are now before the judges accusing the man whom they themselves condemned without consulting the judges, and are now bringing him to trial on whom they have already inflicted punishment.  After this we may say that it is bringing irregularity into the courts of justice, and that the judges will be advancing further than their power authorizes them, if they pronounce judgment at the same time in the case of the accused person, and of him whom the accused person impeaches.  And in the next place, we may point out if this rule is established, and if men avenge one offence by another offence, and one injury by another injury, what vast inconvenience will ensue from such conduct, and that if the person who is now the prosecutor had chosen to do so too, there would have been no need of this trial at all, and that if every one else were to do so, there would be an end of all courts of justice.

After that it may be pointed out, that even if the maiden who is now accused by him of this crime had been convicted, he would not himself have had any right to inflict punishment on her, so that it is a shameful thing that the man who would have had no right to punish her, even if she had been convicted, should have punished her without her being even brought to trial at all.  And then the accused person may be called upon to produce the law which he says justifies his having acted in such a manner.

After that, as we have enjoined when speaking of comparison, that that which is mentioned in comparison should be disparaged by the accuser as much as possible, so, too, in this kind of argument, it will be advantageous to compare the fault of the party on whom the accusation is retorted with the crime of the accused person who justified his action as having been lawfully done.  And after that it is necessary to point out that that is not an action of such a sort, that on account of it this other crime ought to have been committed.  The last point, as in the case of comparison, is the assumption of a judicial decision, and the dilating upon it in the way of amplification, in accordance with the rules given respecting deliberation.