Earth and the Gods

Then, O Earth and the Gods, it is monstrous for him to claim that Mantias is his father, and yet to have the audacity to try to make of none effect what Mantias did in his lifetime.

but finally, when there was no longer room for evasion, he allowed the arbitrators to give judgement against him by default, and then, in Heaven’s name, see what he did— he got this judgement for non-appearance set aside, entitling himself Boeotus.

It was not from any love of litigation I protest by the gods, men of the jury, that I brought this suit against Boeotus, nor was I unaware that it will seem strange to many people that I should bring suit because somebody thought right to have the same name as myself;

And yet, by the gods, if I had led you off to prison as a thief caught in the act, piling upon your back—if this had been in any way possible—the wealth which you now possess, and had then demanded of you, if you denied having got this wealth by thievery, to refer me to the source from which you got it, to whom would you have referred me?

It is outrageous, then, O Earth and the gods, and worse than outrageous, that he should suffer those who made him a Greek instead of a barbarian and a man of note instead of a slave, and who brought him to such great prosperity, to live in dire want while he has means and is rich, and that he should have come to such a pitch of shamelessness that he cannot bring himself to share with us the good f …