Abdicatus

First, I shall begin with the law under which he wishes to disown me, in order that he may discover that his power is now no longer what it was before. The lawgiver, father,has not permitted all to exercise the privilege of disownment, or upon all sons, or as often as they choose, or upon all manner of grounds. On the contrary, just as he has conceded to fathers the right to exercise such anger, just so he has made provision in behalf of sons, that they may not suffer it unjustly ; and for that reason he has not allowed the punishment to be inflicted freely or without trial, but has ordered men to be summoned to court and empanelled as investigators who will not be influenced either by anger or by malice in determining what is just. For he knew that many people on many occasions are obsessed by senseless reasons for anger; that one believes a malicious falsehood, while another relies upon a servant or an unfriendly female. It was not his idea, therefore, that the thing should go untried or that sons should at once lose their case by default. Water is measured,[*](Time for speaking is apportioned to each side by the waterclock (κλέψυδρα). ) a hearing is given, and nothing is left uninvestigated.

Accordingly, since it is within your powers, since my father controls only the charge, and you who sit in judgement control the decision whether his accusation is reasonable, do not yet consider his specific allegation against me and the ground of his present indignation, but first examine that other point, whether he should still be allowed to disown a son when, after once for all disowning him, using the privilege that derives from the law and exercising to the full this paternal suzerainty, he has subsequently

When that son was born there was no way, of course, to ascertain whether he would turn out to be bad or good, and on that account the privilege of repudiating children who are unworthy of their family has been allowed to their parents, since they determined to bring them up at a time when they were unaware ofthis.

When, however, under no constraint but able to do as he pleases, a man himself, of his own motion and after putting his son to the test, takes him back, what pretext for change of mind remains, or what further recourse to the law? The legislator would say to you: “If he was bad and deserved to be disowned, what made you ask him back? Why did you readmit him to your house? Why did you nullify the law? You were free and at liberty not to do this. Surely it cannot be conceded that you should make sport of the laws and that

In Heaven’s name, gentlemen of the jury, do not permit him, once he has effected the reinstatement of his own free will, set aside the decision of the former court, and nullified his anger, to reinvoke the same penalty and to recur to the right of a father when its term by now is over and done with, inoperative in his case alone because it is already used up. You perceive, surely, that in all courts where jurors are drawn by lot, if a man thinks that the verdict is unjust, the law allows him to appeal from them to another tribunal; but if people have themselves of their own accord agreed upon jurors and willingly committed the arbitrament to them, that is not then the case. For there was no need to consult them at all; but if a man has selected them of his own choice, he ought to remain content with their decision. So it is with you: a son who seemed to you unworthy of his lineage need never have been taken back, but one whom you have pronounced good and taken

Even if I were not your own son, but adopted, and you wished to disown me, I should not think you could; for what it was possible not to do at all, it is unjust to undo once it has taken place. But when a son has been got by birth, and then again by choice and decision, how is it reasonable to put him away again and deprive him repeatedly of that single relationship? If I happened to be a slave, and at first, thinking me vicious, you had put me in irons, but on becoming convinced that I was not a wrongdoer you had let me go and set me free, would it be in your power, if you became angry on occasion, to bring me back into the same condition of slavery? By no means, for the laws require that such pacts should be permanent and under all circumstances valid.

Upon the point that it is no longer in his power to disown one whom he has once disowned and then of his own accord taken back I still have much to say ; nevertheless, I shall make an end.