Greek Texts & Translations

57.37My grandfather, men of Athens, the father of my mother, was Damostratus of Melitê. ^note To him were born four children; by his first wife a daughter and a son Amytheon, and by his second wife Chaerestratê my mother and Timocrates. These also had children. Amytheon had a son Damostratus, who bore the same name as his grandfather, and two others, Callistratus and Dexitheus. Amytheon, my mother's brother, was one of those who served in the campaign in Sicily ^note and were killed there, and he lies buried in the public tomb. ^note These facts will be proved to you by testimony. 57.38To Amytheon's sister, who married Diodorus of Halae, ^note was born a son Ctesibius, and he was killed in Abydus ^note while serving in the campaign with Thrasybulus. Of these relatives there is living Damostratus, son of Amytheon and nephew of my mother. The sister of my grandmother Chaerestratê was married to Apollodorus of Plotheia. ^note They had a son Olympichus, and Olympichus a son Apollodorus, who is still living.

Call these people, please.Witnesses

57.39These witnesses, then, you have heard giving their testimony and taking their oaths. I will call also one who is our kinsman on both sides, and his sons. For Timocrates, who is my mother's brother, born from the same father and the same mother, had a son Euxitheus, and Euxitheus had three sons. All these persons are still living.

Call, please, those of them who are in the city.Witnesses

57.40Now take, please, the depositions of the members of the clan belonging to the same gens as my mother, and of the members of the deme, and of those who have the right of burial in the same tombs.Depositions

As to my mother's lineage, then, I prove to you in this way that she was an Athenian on both the male and the female side. My mother, men of the jury, first married Protomachus, to whom she was given by Timocrates, her brother born of the same father and the same mother ^note; and she had by him a daughter. Then she married my father and gave birth to me. But how it was that she came to marry my father you must hear; for the charges which my opponent makes regarding Cleinias and my mother's having served as nurse—all this too I will set forth to you clearly. 57.41Protomachus was a poor man, but becoming entitled to inherit a large estate by marrying an heiress, ^note and wishing to give my mother in marriage, he persuaded my father Thucritus, an acquaintance of his, to take her, and my father received my mother in marriage at the hands of her brother Timocrates of Melitê, in the presence of both his own uncles and other witnesses; and of these as many as are still living shall give testimony before you. 57.42Some time after this, when by now two children had been born to her, she was compelled at a time when my father was absent on military service with Thrasybulus and she herself was in hard straits, to take Cleinias, the son of Cleidicus, to nurse. This act of hers was, Heaven knows, none too fortunate with reference to the danger which has now come upon me (for it was from this nursing that all the slander about us has arisen); but in view of the poverty with which she had to cope she did what was perhaps both necessary and fitting. 57.43Now it is plain, men of Athens, that it was not my father who first received my mother in marriage. No; it was Protomachus,and he had by her a son, and a daughter whom he gave in marriage. And he, even though dead, bears testimony by what he did that my mother was an Athenian and of civic birth.

To prove that these statements of mine are true, call first, please, the sons of Protomachus, and next the witnesses who were present when my mother was betrothed to my father, and from the members of the clan the kinsfolk to whom my father gave the marriage-feast in honor of my mother. After them call Eunicus of Cholargus, ^note who received my sister in marriage from Protomachus, and then my sister's son. Call them.Witnesses