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.

We on our part acknowledge that we sell ribbons and do not live in the manner we could wish, and if in your eyes, Eubulides, this is a sign that we are not Athenians, I shall prove to you the very opposite—that it is not permitted to any alien to do business in the market.[*](That is, without paying a special resident-alien tax, and being registered.)

(To the clerk.) Take first the law of Solon and read it, please.

The Law

(To the clerk.) Now take also the law of Aristophon; for, men of Athens, Solon was thought to have enacted in this instance so wise and democratic a law that you voted to re-enact it.

The Law

It is fitting that you, then, acting in defence of the laws, should hold, not that those who ply a trade are aliens, but that those who bring malicious and baseless suits are scoundrels. For, Eubulides, there is another law too regarding idleness to which you, who denounce us who are traders, are amenable.

But we are at the present time involved in a misfortune so great that, whereas it is permitted to this fellow to make slanderous statements which have nothing to do with the case, and to avail himself of every possible means to prevent my obtaining my rights in any particular, you will perhaps rebuke me, if I tell you what sort of a trade this man plies as he goes about the city; and you would do so with good reason, for what need is there for me to tell you what you know? But consider. It seems to me certainly that our carrying on a trade in the market-place is the strongest proof that this fellow is bringing against us charges which are false.

He asserts that my mother is a vendor of ribbons and that everybody has seen her. Well then, there ought to be many to testify from knowledge who she is, and not from hearsay only. If she was an alien, they ought to have examined the market-tolls, and have shown whether she paid the alien’s tax, and from what country she came; and if she were a slave, then the one who had bought her should by all means have come to give evidence against her, or the one who sold her, or in default of them, someone else to prove that she had lived as a slave or had been set free. But as it is, Eubulides has proved not one of these things; he has merely, in my opinion, indulged in every form of abuse. For this is what a blackmailer is; he makes all manner of charges, but proves nothing.

He has said this too about my mother, that she served as a nurse. We, on our part, do not deny that this was the case in the time of the city’s misfortune, when all people were badly off; but in what manner and for what reasons she became a nurse I will tell you plainly. And let no one of you, men of Athens, be prejudiced against us because of this; for you will find today many Athenian women who are serving as nurses; I will mention them by name, if you wish. If we were rich we should not be selling ribbons nor be in want in any way. But what has this to do with our descent? Nothing whatever, in my opinion.

Pray, men of Athens, do not scorn the needy (their poverty is misfortune enough), and scorn still less those who choose to engage in trade and get their living by honest means. No; listen to my words, and if I prove to you that my mother’s relatives are such as free-born people ought to be; that they deny upon oath the calumnious charges which this man makes regarding her, and testify that they know her to be of civic birth—they on their part being witnesses whom you yourselves will acknowledge to be worthy of credence—, then, as you are bound to do, cast your votes in my favor.

My grandfather, men of Athens, the father of my mother, was Damostratus of Melitê.[*](Melitê, a deme of the tribe Cecropis.) To him were born four children; by his first wife a daughter and a son Amytheon, and by his second wife Chaerestratê my mother and Timocrates. These also had children. Amytheon had a son Damostratus, who bore the same name as his grandfather, and two others, Callistratus and Dexitheus. Amytheon, my mother’s brother, was one of those who served in the campaign in Sicily[*](The disastrous expedition to Sicily was sent out in 415 B.C.) and were killed there, and he lies buried in the public tomb.[*](A cenotaph, of course.) These facts will be proved to you by testimony.

To Amytheon’s sister, who married Diodorus of Halae,[*](For the two demes of this name see note a on p. 336 of vol. ii.) was born a son Ctesibius, and he was killed in Abydus[*](A town on Hellespont. The date of this campaign was 388 B.C.) while serving in the campaign with Thrasybulus. Of these relatives there is living Damostratus, son of Amytheon and nephew of my mother. The sister of my grandmother Chaerestratê was married to Apollodorus of Plotheia.[*](Plotheia, a deme of the tribe Aegeïs.) They had a son Olympichus, and Olympichus a son Apollodorus, who is still living.

(To the clerk.) Call these people, please.

The Witnesses

These witnesses, then, you have heard giving their testimony and taking their oaths. I will call also one who is our kinsman on both sides, and his sons. For Timocrates, who is my mother’s brother, born from the same father and the same mother, had a son Euxitheus, and Euxitheus had three sons. All these persons are still living.

(To the clerk.) Call, please, those of them who are in the city.

The Witnesses

Now take, please, the depositions of the members of the clan belonging to the same gens as my mother, and of the members of the deme, and of those who have the right of burial in the same tombs.

The Depositions

As to my mother’s lineage, then, I prove to you in this way that she was an Athenian on both the male and the female side. My mother, men of the jury, first married Protomachus, to whom she was given by Timocrates, her brother born of the same father and the same mother[*](In order that a marriage should be legitimate it was necessary that the woman should be given in marriage by a near male relative—generally her father or her brother, or in default of these by someone acting in their stead.); and she had by him a daughter. Then she married my father and gave birth to me. But how it was that she came to marry my father you must hear; for the charges which my opponent makes regarding Cleinias and my mother’s having served as nurse—all this too I will set forth to you clearly.