Against Eubulides

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.