Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
<<Dem. 18.122 | Dem. 18.130 (Greek) | >>Dem. 18.140 |
18.129I am at no loss for information about you and your family; but I am at a loss where to begin. Shall I relate how your father Tromes was a slave in the house of Elpias, who kept an elementary school near the Temple of Theseus, and how he wore shackles on his legs and a timber collar round his neck? or how your mother practised daylight nuptials in an outhouse next door to Heros the bone-setter, note and so brought you up to act in tableaux vivants and to excel in minor parts on the stage? However, everybody knows that without being told by me. Shall I tell you how Phormio the boatswain, a slave of Dio of Phrearrii, uplifted her from that chaste profession? But I protest that, however well the story becomes you, I am afraid I may be thought to have chosen topics unbecoming to myself. 18.130I will pass by those early days, and begin with his conduct of his own life; for indeed it has been no ordinary life, but such as is an abomination to a free people. Only recently— recently, do I say? Why it was only the day before yesterday when he became simultaneously an Athenian and an orator, and, by the addition of two syllables, transformed his father from Tromes to Atrometus, and bestowed upon his mother the high sounding name of Glaucothea, although she was universally known as the Banshee, a nickname she owed to the pleasing diversity of her acts and experiences—it can have no other origin. 18.131You were raised from servitude to freedom, and from beggary to opulence, by the favor of your fellow-citizens, and yet you are so thankless and ill-conditioned that, instead of showing them your gratitude, you take the pay of their enemies and conduct political intrigues to their detriment. I will not deal with speeches which, on a disputable construction, may be called patriotic, but I will recall to memory acts by which he was proved beyond doubt to have served your enemies.
18.132You all remember Antiphon, the man who was struck off the register, and came back to
Witnesses
[We, Callias of Sunium, Zeno of
Phlya , Cleon of Phalerum, Demonicus of Marathon, on behalf of all the councillors, bear witness for Demosthenes that, when the people elected Aeschines state-advocate before the Amphictyons in the matter of the temple atDelos , we in Council judged Hypereides more worthy to speak on behalf of the state, and Hypereides was accordingly commissioned.]
18.136Thus by rejecting this man from his spokesmanship, and giving the appointment to another, the Council branded him as a traitor and an enemy to the people.
So much for one of his spirited performances. Is it not just like the charges he brings against me? Now let me remind you of another. Philip had sent to us
Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
<<Dem. 18.122 | Dem. 18.130 (Greek) | >>Dem. 18.140 |