24.20

It’s well known that men visit shops that are in closest proximity to the Agora. So if the shoppers at the defendant’s business are all classed as criminals, what is preventing all Athenians who frequent shops in the Agora to be condemned in a similar manner? 

εἴθισται: “is accustomed” + complementary infinitive > ἐθίζω, 3rd sing. perf. mid./pass. ind.

προσφοιτᾶν: “to hang out at” = pres. act. inf. of an α-contract verb: προσφοιτά(ει)ν.

ἕκαστος γὰρ ὑμῶν...ὁ μὲν...ὁ δὲ...ὁ δὲ...ὁ δ᾽: “each of you...one...another...another...another.” Distributive use of the article as a demonstrative following a partitive genitive. We can imagine the speaker breezily counting off this string of articles on his fingers, as he enumerates the various shops that an Athenian citizen could visit when running errands. 

μυροπώλιον...κουρεῖον...σκυτοτομεῖον: The perfumer’s shop, barber’s shop, and shoemaker’s shop were popular social sites (particularly the barber’s shop, as it remains to this day) for the informal exchange of news and gossip. The commercial and social life of Athenian men were intimately entwined.

πλεῖστοι...ἐλάχιστοι: supply προφοίτωσιν.

ὡς τοὺς…ὡς τοὺς: another prepositional use of ὡς (“to/towards”).

τοὺς ἐγγυτάτω τῆς ἀγορᾶς κατεσκευασμένους: “the shops situated closest to the Agora.”

ἐγγυτάτω: superlative adv. of ἐγγύς.

τοὺς πλεῖστον ἀπέχοντας αὐτῆς: “the shops most distant from the Agora.”

αὐτῆς: = ἀγορᾶς. Genitive case of the pronoun is determined by the participle ἀπέχοντας (“being far from” + place in genitive).

ὥστ’ εἰ: “so if…” Introduces the extended logical consequence of the previous statement.

πονηρίαν καταγνώσεται: “accuse of deceitful behavior.” The verb takes an accusative (the crime) and genitive (the person accused) construction (LSJ καταγιγνώσκω ΙΙ).

τῶν ὡς ἐμὲ εἰσιόντων: = the men who hang out at the defendant’s shop. The substantive participle is repeated above in Chapter 19.

δῆλον ὅτι: supply πονηρίαν καταγνώσεσθε. The defendant advances the strained logical inference that if the jury considers the men who hang out in his shop to be up to no good, they should treat all men who visit all other shops in the same way. A general truism: when someone declares a statement or proposition “is clear,” it most likely is not and deserves a critical analysis.

τῶν παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις διατριβόντων: “the men who spend their time in the shops of others.” Genitive of the person accused with the supplied verb καταγνώσεται and parallel to τῶν ὡς ἐμὲ εἰσιόντων.

εἰ δὲ κἀκείνων, ἁπάντων Ἀθηναίων: “If one of you guys accuses even these men of deceitful behavior, then he will have to accuse every Athenian.” Supply (again) τις ὑμῶν...πονηρίαν καταγνώσεται in both the protasis and apodosis. The defendant’s refutation of the charge that his workshop served as a hive for subversive malcontents culminates in this compressed and pithy conditional. The punchy assonance and alliteration α/αι/η and ε/ει vowel sounds contribute to the emphatic conclusion to the rebuttal.

κἀκείνων: = crasis of καὶ + ἐκείνων .

εἴθισθε προσφοιτᾶν: Lysias signals the end of his argument by echoing the language with which he began, reinforcing the claim that it is perfectly normal and respectable to frequent workshops.

ἁμοῦ γέ που: “somewhere or other.” A very rare expression, if original to the speech. ἁμοῦ (“somewhere”) is possibly an adverbial form of ἁμός, an earlier equivalent to τις. Is this expression meant to capture the slang of the workshop or the archaic idiom of the elderly?