Against Eubulides

Yet, if in the case of those who are proved to have hidden their real parentage and laid claim to a false one, you rightly hold this to be a proof that they are aliens, surely in my case the opposite should prove that I am a citizen. For in claiming the rights of citizenship I should never have inscribed myself as the son of parents who were both foreigners, but, if I had known any such thing, I should have sought out persons to claim as my parents. But I knew nothing of the sort, and so, holding fast to those who are my real parents, I claim Athenian citizenship.

Again, I was left an orphan; and yet they say that I am rich and that some of the witnesses testify that they are my relatives because they receive help from me. They taunt me with my poverty and make my birth a reproach, but at the same time they assert that I am rich enough to buy anything.

In which statement, then, is one to believe them? It surely would have been their right, if I had been illegitimate or an alien, to inherit all my property. Do they prefer, then, to take a little and jeopardize themselves by giving false testimony and to commit perjury, rather than to take everything, and that with safety, without having invoked a curse upon their own heads? This is not the case. No; in my opinion, seeing that they are my relatives, they are but doing what is right in aiding one of themselves.

And they are not doing this at this time because I have induced them to do so; on the contrary, when I was a child they at once took me to the clansmen, they took me to the temple of Apollo our ancestral god, and to the other sacred places. And yet I presume that as a child I did not induce these men to do this by giving them money. No; my father himself, while he still lived, swore the customary oath and introduced me to the clansmen, knowing that I was an Athenian, born of an Athenian mother, lawfully betrothed to himself; and these facts have been established by testimony.

Am I, then, an alien? Where have I paid the resident alien’s tax?[*](Aliens resident in Athens paid a tax of 12 drachmae annually.) Or what member of my family has ever paid it? Have I ever gone to the members of another deme and, because I could not induce them to accept me, got myself registered in this one? Have I done any of the things which all those who are not genuine citizens are proved to have done? Certainly not. No; in a word I manifestly have lived as a member of the deme among the same people among whom my father’s grandfather, my own grandfather, and my father himself lived. And now, how could anyone prove to you more convincingly than I have done that he is entitled to the rights of citizenship?

Let each one of you consider, men of Athens, in what other way he could prove that people are his kinsmen than in the way in which I have proved it—by having them give testimony under oath and showing that they have always been my kinsmen from the beginning.

It is for these reasons that I have confidence in my case and have come to you for protection. For I see, men of Athens, that the decisions of your courts are more valid not only than those of the Halimusians who have expelled me, but more valid even than those of the senate and the popular assembly; and justly so; for in all respects the verdicts of your courts are most just.

Reflect upon this also, all you who belong to the large demes, that you are not wont to deprive any man of his right of accusation and defence. And I invoke many blessings upon the heads of all of you who have dealt fairly with this matter, because you did not deprive of the opportunity to prepare their case those who asked for a delay. By taking this course you exposed the pettifoggers and those who were maliciously scheming against others.

You are deserving of praise for this, men of Athens; but those are to be blamed who have misused a procedure that was both admirable and just. In no other of the demes will you find that more outrageous things have been done than in ours. Of brothers born of the same mother and the same father they have expelled some and retained others, and they have expelled elderly men of slender means, while they have left their sons on the list of demesmen; and to prove these things I will call witnesses, if you wish.

But you must hear the most outrageous thing which these conspirators have done (and I beg you in the name of Zeus and the gods, let no one of you be offended if I show the rascality of these men who have wronged me. For I hold that in showing what scoundrels they are I am speaking with precise reference to the experience which has befallen me). For, you must know, men of Athens, that when certain aliens, Anaximenes and Nicostratus, wished to become citizens, these scoundrels admitted them for a sum of money, which they divided among themselves, receiving five drachmae apiece. Eubulides and his clique will not deny on oath that they have knowledge of this; and now in this last revision they did not expel these men. Do you think, then, that there is anything that they would not do in private, seeing that in a public matter they dared this?

There are many people indeed, men of the jury, whom Eubulides and his clique have destroyed or have saved for money. For even at an earlier time (and my words shall bear upon the matter in hand, men of Athens) Antiphilus, the father of Eubulides, when he was prefect of the deme, as I have told you, made use of trickery in his desire to get money from certain persons, and asserted that he had lost the public register; and he thereby induced the Halimusians to revise their list of members, denounced ten of their number, and had them expelled; all of whom with one exception the court of justice restored. These facts all the older ones know.