| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 54.1 | Dem. 54.10 (Greek) | >>Dem. 54.19 |
54.7These, then, are the acts of which I thought proper to take no account. Not long after this, however, one evening, when I was taking a walk, as my custom was, in the agora with Phanostratus of Cephisia, note a man of my own age, note Ctesias, the son of the defendant, passed by me in a drunken state opposite the Leocorion, note near the house of Pythodorus. At sight of us he uttered a yell, and, saying something to himself, as a drunken man does, in an unintelligible fashion, passed on up, toward Melitê. note Gathered together there for a drinking bout, as we afterwards learned, at the house of Pamphilus the fuller, were the defendant Conon , a certain Theotimus, Archeblades, Spintharus, son of Eubulus, Theogenes, son of Andromenes, and a number of others. Ctesias made them all get up, and proceeded to the agora.
54.8It happened that we were turning back from the temple of Persephonê, note and on our walk were again about opposite the Leocorion when we met them. When we got close to them one of them, I don't know which, fell upon Phanostratus and pinned him, while the defendant Conon together with his son and the son of Andromenes threw themselves upon me. They first stripped me of my cloak, and then, tripping me up they thrust me into the mud and leapt upon me and beat me with such violence that my lip was split open and my eyes closed; and they left me in such a state that I could neither get up nor utter a sound. As I lay there I heard them utter much outrageous language,
54.9a great deal of which was such foul abuse that I should shrink from repeating some of it in your presence. One thing, however, which is an indication of the fellow's insolence and a proof that the whole affair has been of his doing, I will tell you. He began to crow, mimicking fighting cocks that have won a battle and his fellows bade him flap his elbows against his sides like wings. After this some people who happened to pass took me home stripped as I was, for these men had gone off taking my cloak with them. When my bearers got to my door, my mother and the women servants began shrieking and wailing, and it was with difficulty that I was at length carried to a bath. There I was thoroughly bathed, and shown to the surgeons.
Conon will have the audacity to say in reply to these charges. I wish, therefore, to tell you in advance the defence which I hear he is prepared to make. He will try to divert your attention from the outrage and the actual facts, and will seek to turn the whole matter into mere jest and ridicule.
54.14He will tell you that there are many people in the city, sons of respectable persons, who in sport, after the manner of young men, have given themselves nicknames, such as Ithyphalli or Autolecythi, note and that some of them are infatuated with mistresses; that his own son is one of these and has often given and received blows on account of some girl; and that things of this sort are natural for young men. As for me and all my brothers, he will make out that we are not only drunken and insolent fellows, but also unfeeling and vindictive. note
To prove that these statements of mine are true, I shall call before you the witnesses who attest them.Witnesses
54.10It happened, men of the jury, that Euxitheus of Cholleidae, note who is here in court and is a relative of mine, and with him Meidias, on their way back from a dinner somewhere, came up to me, when I was now near my home, followed after me as I was borne to the bath, and were present when men brought the surgeon. I was so weak, that, as it was far for me to be carried from the bath to my home, those who were with me decided to carry me to the house of Meidias for that night; and so they did.
Now let the clerk take the depositions establishing these facts, that you may understand that a host of people know what outrage I suffered at the hands of these men.Depositions
Take now the deposition of the surgeon also.Deposition
54.11At that time, then, as the immediate result of the blows and the maltreatment I received, I was brought into this condition, as you hear from my own lips, and as all the witnesses who saw me at the time have testified. Afterwards, although the swellings on my face and the bruises, my physician said, did not give him great concern, continuous attacks of fever ensued and violent and acute pains throughout all my body, but especially in my sides and the pit of my stomach, and I was unable to take my food. 54.12Indeed, the surgeon said that, if a copious hemorrhage had not spontaneously occurred, while my agony was extreme and my attendants were at their wits' end, I should have died of internal suppuration; but as it was, this loss of blood saved me.
To prove now that these statements of mine are true, and that from the blows which these men dealt me there resulted an illness so severe that it brought me to the point of death. Read the depositions of the surgeon and of those who came to see me.Depositions
54.13That the wounds I received, then, were not slight or trifling, but that I was brought near to death by the outrage and brutality of these men, and that the action which I have entered is far more lenient than the case deserves, has been made clear to you, I think, on many grounds. I fancy, however, that some of you are wondering what in the world there can be that
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 54.1 | Dem. 54.10 (Greek) | >>Dem. 54.19 |
