Against Boeotus I

Demosthenes

Demosthenes. Vol. IV. Orations, XXVII-XL. Murray, A. T., translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936 (printing).

If the defendant declared himself the son of another father and not of my own, I should naturally have seemed meddlesome in caring by what name he chose to call himself; but, as it is, he brought suit against my father, and having got up a gang of blackmailers[*](This strong phrase occurs also in Dem. 40.9.) to support him—Mnesicles, whom you all probably know, and that Menecles who secured the conviction of Ninus,[*](Ninus was a priestess who was put to death, as the scholiast on Dem. 19.281 tells us, for supplying love-potions to young men. The case seems to have been a notorious one, and reflected little credit on Menecles.) and others of the same sort—he went into court, alleging that he was my father’s son by the daughter of Pamphilus, and that he was being outrageously treated, and robbed of his civic rights.