Greek Texts & Translations

Read.Deposition

57.15Now, men of the jury, if the Halimusians had been deciding on that day the status of all the members of the deme, it would have been reasonable for them to continue voting until late, in order that they might have fulfilled the requirements of your decree before departing to their homes. But, seeing that there were more than twenty of the demesmen left regarding whom they had to vote on the following day, and that the members of the deme had in any case to be convened again, what difficulty was there for Eubulides to order an adjournment until the morrow, and then let the demesmen vote upon my case first? 57.16The reason was, men of the jury, that Eubulides knew very well that, if an opportunity of speaking should be granted me and if all the men of the deme should be present to support me and the ballots honestly given out, those who had leagued themselves with him would be nowhere!

How these people came to form their conspiracy against me I will tell you, if you wish to hear it, as soon as I shall have spoken about my parentage. 57.17In the meantime what do I hold to be just, and what am I prepared to do, men of the jury? To show you that I am an Athenian on both my father's and my mother's side, and to produce to prove it witnesses whose veracity you will not question, and to break down the calumnies and the charges brought against me. It will rest with you, when you have heard my statements, if you conclude that I am a citizen and the victim of a conspiracy, to come to my rescue; but if you reach a different conclusion, to act in whatever way your regard for your oaths may bid you. I will begin with this proof.

57.18They have maliciously asserted that my father spoke with a foreign accent. But that he was taken prisoner by the enemy in the course of the Decelean war ^note and was sold into slavery and taken to Leucas, and that he there fell in with Cleander, ^note the actor, and was brought back here to his kinsfolk after a long lapse of time—all this they have omitted to state; but just as though it were right that I should be brought to ruin on account of his misfortunes, they have made his foreign accent the basis of a charge against him. 57.19On my part, however, I think that these very facts will more than anything else help me to demonstrate that I am an Athenian.

In the first place, to prove that my father was taken prisoner and was ransomed, I will bring witnesses before you; then, that when he reached home he received from his uncles his share of the property; and furthermore, that neither among the members of the deme nor among those of the clan nor anywhere else did anyone ever accuse him (despite his foreign accent) with being a foreigner.

Please take the depositions.Depositions

57.20You have heard, then, of my father's being taken prisoner by the enemy and of the good fortune which brought him back here. To prove now that he was your fellow-citizen, men of the jury (for this you may depend upon as being the veritable truth), I will call as witnesses those of my relatives on my father's side who are still living.

Call first, please, Thucritides and Charisiades; for their father Charisius was brother to my grandfather Thucritides and my grandmother Lysaretê, and uncle to my father (for my father had married his sister born of a different mother). ^note 57.21Next, call Niciades; for his father Lysanias was brother to Thucritides and Lysaretê, and uncle to my father. After him, call Nicostratus; for his father Niciades was nephew to my grandfather and my grandmother, and cousin to my father.

Call all these persons, please. And do you check the water.Witnesses

57.22You have heard, men of Athens, the relatives of my father on the male side both deposing and swearing that my father was an Athenian and their own kinsman. And surely not one of them would commit perjury with imprecations on his own head in the presence of those who would know that he was forswearing himself.

Now take also the depositions of those related to my father on the female side.Depositions

57.23These persons, then, the surviving relatives of my father, on both the male and the female side, have testified that he was on both sides an Athenian and justly entitled to the rights of citizenship.

Now call, please, the clansmen and thereafter the members of the gens. ^noteWitnesses

Now take the depositions of the demesmen and the members of the gens in regard to the clansmen, to show that they elected me president of the clan.Depositions