Greek Texts & Translations

Call them, please.Witnesses

57.47Is it not an outrage, men of the jury, that, whereas, if I had been chosen by lot as priest, even as I had been nominated, it would have been my duty to offer sacrifice on behalf of these people, and Eubulides would have had to join in the sacrifice with me,—is it not an outrage, I ask, that these same people should not allow me even to share in the sacrifices with them? It is plain, then, men of Athens, that in all previous time I have been acknowledged as a citizen by all those who now accuse me; 57.48for surely Eubulides would never have suffered the foreigner or resident alien, as he now calls me, either to hold offices or to draw lots with himself as a nominee for the priesthood; for he too was one of the nominees who drew lots. Nor, men of Athens, seeing that he is an old enemy of mine, would he have waited for the present opportunity, which no one could foresee, if he had known any such facts regarding me. But he did not know them. 57.49So, then, although he continued throughout all the past to act as a member of the deme and to draw lots for offices together with me without seeing any of these objections, yet, when the whole city was roused to sharp indignation against those who had recklessly forced their way into the demes, then, and not till then, he laid his plots. The earlier time would have suited one who was convinced of the truth of his charges; but the present suits an enemy and one who will stoop to malicious pettifoggery. 57.50For my own part, men of the jury (and I beg you by Zeus and the gods, let no one make an outcry or be vexed at what I am going to say), I hold myself to be an Athenian on the same grounds on which each one of you holds himself to be one, having from the first regarded as my mother her whom I represent as such to you, and not pretending to be hers while really belonging to another; and in regard to my father the case is the same. 57.51Yet, if in the case of those who are proved to have hidden their real parentage and laid claim to a false one, you rightly hold this to be a proof that they are aliens, surely in my case the opposite should prove that I am a citizen. For in claiming the rights of citizenship I should never have inscribed myself as the son of parents who were both foreigners, but, if I had known any such thing, I should have sought out persons to claim as my parents. But I knew nothing of the sort, and so, holding fast to those who are my real parents, I claim Athenian citizenship.

57.52Again, I was left an orphan; and yet they say that I am rich and that some of the witnesses testify that they are my relatives because they receive help from me. They taunt me with my poverty and make my birth a reproach, but at the same time they assert that I am rich enough to buy anything. 57.53In which statement, then, is one to believe them? It surely would have been their right, if I had been illegitimate or an alien, to inherit all my property. Do they prefer, then, to take a little and jeopardize themselves by giving false testimony and to commit perjury, rather than to take everything, and that with safety, without having invoked a curse upon their own heads? This is not the case. No; in my opinion, seeing that they are my relatives, they are but doing what is right in aiding one of themselves. 57.54And they are not doing this at this time because I have induced them to do so; on the contrary, when I was a child they at once took me to the clansmen, they took me to the temple of Apollo our ancestral god, and to the other sacred places. And yet I presume that as a child I did not induce these men to do this by giving them money. No; my father himself, while he still lived, swore the customary oath and introduced me to the clansmen, knowing that I was an Athenian, born of an Athenian mother, lawfully betrothed to himself; and these facts have been established by testimony.

57.55Am I, then, an alien? Where have I paid the resident alien's tax? ^note Or what member of my family has ever paid it? Have I ever gone to the members of another deme and, because I could not induce them to accept me, got myself registered in this one? Have I done any of the things which all those who are not genuine citizens are proved to have done? Certainly not. No; in a word I manifestly have lived as a member of the deme among the same people among whom my father's grandfather, my own grandfather, and my father himself lived. And now, how could anyone prove to you more convincingly than I have done that he is entitled to the rights of citizenship?