Against Eubulides

Next, call Niciades; for his father Lysanias was brother to Thucritides and Lysaretê, and uncle to my father. After him, call Nicostratus; for his father Niciades was nephew to my grandfather and my grandmother, and cousin to my father.

(To the clerk.) Call all these persons, please. And do you check the water.

The Witnesses

You have heard, men of Athens, the relatives of my father on the male side both deposing and swearing that my father was an Athenian and their own kinsman. And surely not one of them would commit perjury with imprecations on his own head in the presence of those who would know that he was forswearing himself.

(To the clerk.) Now take also the depositions of those related to my father on the female side.

The Depositions

These persons, then, the surviving relatives of my father, on both the male and the female side, have testified that he was on both sides an Athenian and justly entitled to the rights of citizenship.

(To the clerk.) Now call, please, the clansmen and thereafter the members of the gens.[*](In the early period, before the reforms of Cleisthenes (509 B.C.), the four tribes into which the Athenians were at that time divided contained each three phratriae, or clans, and these in turn were divided into thirty γένη. Even after Cleisthenes the phratriae and γένη retained a position of religious, if no longer political, significance. To render γένος in this sense we have no better word than the Latin gens.)

The Witnesses

Now take the depositions of the demesmen and the members of the gens in regard to the clansmen, to show that they elected me president of the clan.

The Depositions

You have heard, then, the testimony given by my relatives and fellow-clansmen and by the members of the deme and of the gens, who are the proper persons to be called upon to testify. And from this you may learn whether a man who has this support is a citizen or an alien. If we were seeking protection in the testimony of one or two people only, we might be open to the suspicion that we had suborned them; but if it appears that my father in his lifetime and I myself at present have been put to the test before all the groups to which each one of you belongs (I mean those of clan, of kindred, of the deme, and of the gens), how can it be, how can it possibly be, that all these persons have been suborned to appear, they not being in truth relatives of mine?

If it were shown that my father was a man of wealth and had given money to these people to persuade them to assert that they were his relatives, it would have been reasonable for anyone to suspect that he was not a citizen; but if, poor as he was, he both produced these same people as his relatives and proved that they had shared their property with him, is it not perfectly clear that he was indeed related to them? For surely, if he was related to no one of them, they would not have admitted him to a place in the gens and have given him money besides. No; he was related to them, as the facts have shown, and as witnesses have testified to you. And furthermore, he was chosen to offices by lot, and he passed the probationary test, and held office.

(To the clerk.) Take the deposition, please.

The Deposition

Now does any one of you imagine that the demesmen would have suffered the alien and non-citizen to hold office among them, and would not have prosecuted him? Well, not a single man prosecuted him, or brought any charge against him. More than that, the demesmen had of necessity to vote on one another, after binding themselves by solemn oaths, when their voting-register was lost during the administration as prefect of the deme of Antiphilus, the father of Eubulides, and they expelled some of their members; but not a man made any motion about my father or brought any such charges against him.

Yet for all men the end of life is death[*](The same phrase occurs in Dem. 18.97, with πέρας for τέλος.); and with whatsoever wrongdoings a man may be charged during his lifetime, it is right that for these his children should forever be held accountable; but in matters concerning which no man ever made accusation against him while he lived, is it not outrageous that anyone so wishing should bring his children to trial? If, now, there had been no inquiry into the question, let us grant that the matter has escaped notice; but if inquiry was made and the demesmen reviewed their lists, and no one ever made any accusation, ought I not justly to be regarded as an Athenian so far as my father is concerned, seeing that he died before any dispute regarding his lineage arose?

To prove that these statements of mine are true, I will call witnesses who depose to these facts also.

The Witnesses

Furthermore, my father had four sons born of the same mother as myself, and when they died he buried them in our ancestral tomb, which belongs in common to all members of the gens; and no one of these kinsfolk ever made protest or prevented it or brought suit. And yet, who is there who would have permitted persons having no connection with the family to be placed in the ancestral tomb?

To prove that these statements of mine also are true, (to the clerk) take the deposition.

The Deposition

With regard to my father, then, these are the grounds for my assertion that he was an Athenian; and I have brought forward as witnesses persons whom my opponents themselves have voted to be citizens, and who depose that my father was their own cousin. It is shown that he lived such and such a number of years here in Attica and that he was never in any place brought under scrutiny as being an alien, but that he found a refuge with these persons as his relatives, and that they both received him and gave him a share of their property as being one of themselves.

Again, it is shown that he was born in a period when, even if he was an Athenian on one side only, he was entitled to citizenship; for he was born before the archonship of Hucleides.[*](In the archonship of Eucleides in 403 B.C., on the motion of Aristophon, an old law of Solon’s was revived and put into effect, which declared that, in order to possess full civic rights, a man must be born of parents both of whom were Athenians. The law was naturally not retroactive.)

With regard to my mother (for they make her too a reproach against me) I will speak, and will call witnesses to support my statements. And yet, men of Athens, in reproaching us with service in the market Eubulides has acted, not only contrary to your decree, but also contrary to the laws which declare that anyone who makes business in the market a reproach against any male or female citizen shall be liable to the penalties for evil-speaking.