On the Olive Stump

For I shall be the most miserable of creatures if I am to be unjustly declared in exile: I am childless and alone, my house would be abandoned, my mother would be in utter penury, and I should be deprived of a native land, that is so much to me, on the most disgraceful of charges,—I who in her defence have engaged in many sea-fights and fought many battles on land, and have shown myself an orderly person under both democracy and oligarchy.

But on these matters, gentlemen, I do not know what call I have to speak in this place. However, I have proved to you that there was no stump on the plot, and I have produced witnesses and evidence: these you should bear in mind when you make your decision on the case, and require this man to inform you why it was that, neglecting to convict me as taken in the act, he has delayed so long in bringing so serious an action against me;

why he seeks to be credited on the strength of his statements, unsupported by a single witness, when the bare facts would have sufficed to establish my guilt and why,on my offering all the servants whom he asserts to have been then present, he declined to accept them.