speaker

For I have given no slight proof of my freedom of speech, and over no short time.

And yet all men who do anything willingly do it either for the sake of money, or of reputation, or for some other pleasure, or—lastly, I suppose—out of regard for virtue and the honorable itself.

But I, most noble Emperor, have associated with you, and am perhaps experienced in your nature as much as any man, knowing that you delight in truth and frank speech rather than in flattery and deceit.

If two trials have been made out of one, it is not I, but my accusers, who are to blame;

Rest assured that I should never have come to Athens, had such a crime been on my conscience.

the repeated trial of a case is a good friend of the truth and the deadly foe of misrepresentation.

you deny it, Antiochus above all.

"It has been guarded against," he says;

This seemed gross to Antiochus himself and self-contradictory;

I saw, however, that the household goods had been carried off and in what plight the old woman was.

Now there was not in the dockyards equipment for the ships, but those from whom it was due, who had in their possession such equipment, had failed to return it;

No, but in obedience to decrees passed by your assembly and senate and at the bidding of the law I demanded of him the ship’s equipment which he owed to the state.

This very thing, then, is what I have come to advise:

I, then, have now told you part of what I judge to be best, and the rest I shall counsel you throughout all your life.

1. There are many things, my children, that prompt me to advise you of what I judge to be best, and what I am persuaded will profit you if you choose it. For both my time of life, and my long training in many affairs, and indeed my full share of that change which teaches all things by turns, have made me experienced in human matters, so that I can point out to those just setting out upon life, as …

And now, in seeking to recover what is mine, I have come into the greatest peril;

I beg of you, men of the jury, to give me a favorable hearing, and, if you judge that I have been wronged, to render me the aid which is my due.

If Aphobus, men of the jury, had been willing to do what is fair, or to submit the matters in dispute between us to the arbitration of friends, there would be no occasion for a troublesome lawsuit;

For Callicles, having set his heart on my land, has pestered me with malicious and baseless litigation:

no one made any opposition at the start, as he would have done, if my father by walling in his land had caused injury to anyone;

Do not, then, men of the jury, I beg you in the name of Zeus and the gods, leave me as the prey of these men, when I have done no wrong.

So, if you like, we claim the inheritance as kinsmen of Archiades, or, if you like it better, as kinsmen of Leocrates;

Our right of inheritance, based on kinship in the family to which the estate belongs, is, men of the jury, substantially this.

My father here (for the truth shall be told you) comes into court with manifest signs that he is, as you are all aware, a poor man, and that he knows nothing of pleading in court;

I, then, administered matters in this way, in order that the families springing from Buselus should as completely as possible be preserved.

I myself, when I had been awarded the hand of the mother of this boy, and four sons and one daughter had been born to me, gave them, men of the jury, the following names:

I for my part, men of the jury, am defending to the full extent of my power the interest of those dead relatives, but it is not an easy task to contend against the intrigues of these men.

The defendant Olympiodorus, then, is a person of this sort.

Now, men of the jury, you must consider another thing which he has done.

There was a certain Comon of Halae, men of the, jury, a relative of ours.

The Inventory

Then I sealed the buildings, and bade Phaenippus to proceed to my property.

but, as you have given public aid to all those engaged in mining, so now give aid to me as a private citizen.

None the less, men of the jury, I beg you to give heed.

This man Spudias and I, men of the jury, are married to two sisters, daughters of Polyeuctus.

and that at his death he directed by his will that pillars should be set up on the house in my favor for a thousand drachmae due on account of my wife’s portion.

you are masters, and I was master.

If he had been honest, he would have managed his master’s business, and remained poor.

Other slaves one may see called to strict account by their masters, but here we see the very opposite:

I think that you too would be doing well if you kept in view, not the speaker, but the advice being offered.

Let none of you, according as one or another has an opinion about the present situation, be positive that he is right in all his conclusions;

But since I see you about to try the opposite measures, I think I ought to speak against them, even if I shall be hated for it by certain persons.

for mine was manned before they had so much as touched theirs, and you all saw the ship being tested.

and they order you to crown, or not to crown, whomsoever they will, setting themselves up as superior to your decrees.

But the fact is, the people appointed that the treasurer should give the crown to the one who first got his trireme ready for sea;

they left the city of their own accord and went into exile.

And now, Euxenippus, I have done all in my power to help you.

Yet, though he is a private citizen, by your mode of prosecution you class him as an orator.

That is why my father never brought a suit for the estate.

that the father of Cyronides and of my mother left this estate to Demochares;

I, on the other hand, gentlemen, though my means are slender, bestowed my sisters in marriage, giving them what dowry I could;

Please read the oath.

I want also to recommend Homer to you.

My part consists in exposing one who is doing away with all these principles, to you who are empowered to chastise him it remains for you, as a service to yourselves and Heaven, to take vengeance on Leocrates.

for one may with impunity neglect what is advised rather than what is commanded, because the one comes from counsel and is set before the will, while the other descends from authority and is bound to necessity:

I have judged it fitting, my dearest fellow-servant in the Lord, to provide now, in advance, for what you should pursue after my departure from this world, should I be called before you, and to entrust to your faithfulness, so that, having been provided for, you may observe it.

Either let his justice perceive it to be good, or let his clemency make it good;

of these his clemency—which holds the first place among his virtues—promises that I too shall be a spectator.

even now I would find something to flow from these eyes of mine, already drained by weeping for my own household—if only it would do you any good.