It is worth your while, men of Athens, to consider this also – that you punished Archias, who had been hierophant, when he was convicted in court of impiety and of offering sacrifice contrary to the rites handed down by our fathers. Among the charges brought against himwas, that at the feast of the harvest he sacrificed on the altar in the court at Eleusis a victim brought by the courtesan Sinope, although it was not lawful to offer victims on that day, and the sacrifice was not his to perform, but the priestess’! It is, then, a monstrous thing that a man who was of the race of the Eumolpidae, born of honorable ancestors and a citizen of Athens, should be punished for having transgressed one of your established customs; and the pleadings of his relatives and friends did not save him, nor the public services which he and his ancestors had rendered to the city; no, nor yet his office of hierophant; but you punished him, because he was judged to be guilty. (Demosthenes Against Neaera 116-117)
