Greek Texts & Translations

54.1With gross outrage I have met, men of the jury, at the hands of the defendant, Conon, and have suffered such bodily injury that for a very long time neither my relatives nor any of the attending physicians thought that I should survive. Contrary to expectation, however, I did recover and regain my strength, and I then brought against him this action for the assault. All my friends and relatives, whose advice I asked, declared that for what he had done the defendant was liable to summary seizure as a highwayman, or to public indictments for criminal outrage ^note; but they urged and advised me not to take upon myself matters which I should not be able to carry, or to appear to be bringing suit for the maltreatment I had received in a manner too ambitious for one so young. I took this course, therefore, and, in deference to their advice, have instituted a private suit, although I should have been very glad, men of Athens, to prosecute the defendant on a capital charge. 54.2And for this you will all pardon me, I am sure, when you hear what I have suffered. For, grievous as was the injury which at that time fell to my lot, it was no more so than the subsequent insults of the defendant. I ask as my right, therefore, and implore you all without distinction, to listen with goodwill, while I tell you what I have suffered, and then, if you think that I have been the victim of wrongful and lawless acts, to render me the aid which is my due. I shall state to you from the beginning each incident as it occurred in the fewest words I can.

54.3Two years ago I went out to Panactum, ^note where we had been ordered to do garrison duty. The sons of the defendant, Conon, encamped near us, as I would to heaven they had not done; for our original enmity and our quarrels began in fact just there. How these came about, you shall hear. These men used always to spend the entire day after luncheon in drinking, and they kept this up continually as long as we were in the garrison. We, on our part, conducted ourselves while in the country just as we were wont to do here. 54.4Well, at whatever time the others might be having their dinner, these men were already drunk and abusive, at first toward our body-slaves, but in the end toward ourselves. For, alleging that the slaves annoyed them with smoke while getting dinner, or were impudent toward them, or whatever else they pleased, they used to beat them and empty their chamber-pots over them, or befoul them with urine; there was nothing in the way of brutality and outrage in which they did not indulge. When we saw this, we were annoyed and at first expostulated with them, but they mocked at us, and would not desist, and so our whole mess in a body—not I alone apart from the rest—went to the general and told him what was going on. 54.5He rebuked them with stern words, not only for their brutal treatment of us, but for their whole behavior in camp; yet so far from desisting, or being ashamed of their acts, they burst in upon us that very evening as soon as it grew dark, and, beginning with abusive language, they proceeded to beat me, and they made such a clamor and tumult about the tent, that both the general and the taxiarchs ^note came and some of the other soldiers, by whose coming we were prevented from suffering, or ourselves doing, some damage that could not be repaired, being victims as we were of their drunken violence. 54.6When matters had gone thus far, it was natural that after our return home there should exist between us feelings of anger and hatred. However, on my own part I swear by the gods I never saw fit to bring an action against them, or to pay any attention to what had happened. I simply made this resolve—in future to be on my guard, and to take care to have nothing to do with people of that sort.

I wish in the first place to bring before you depositions proving these statements, and then to show what I have suffered at the hands of the defendant himself, in order that you may see that Conon, who should have dealt rigorously with the first offences, has himself added to these far more outrageous acts of his own doing.Depositions

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.