Against Boeotus II

Demosthenes

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

This great and formidable contest, then, he got up against me, not as a simple-minded fellow, but as a conspirator and a villain. But after this, instead of the name, Boeotus, which my father had given him, as has been proved to you by witnesses, after my father’s death he had his name inscribed on the list of the demesmen as Mantitheus, and being further addressed by the name of the same father and the same deme as I myself, he not only forced a retrial of the case in which I am now suing him,[*](By claiming that his name was Mantitheus, not Boeotus, he made of no effect the judgement rendered against him under the latter name.) but when you had elected me taxiarch, he came in person to the court to pass the probationary test[*](Every Athenian elected to public office had to pass a scrutiny (δοκιμασία) and prove his full citizenship.); and when judgement had been given against him in an ejectment suit, he declared that it was not against him but against me that the judgement had been given.