Against Theomnestus 1

who on leaving the court remarked that that was our most calamitous campaign, in which many of us were killed, and those who saved their arms had been condemned for false witness at the suit of those who threw theirs away; and that it had been better for him to be killed on that day than return home to meet with such a fate?

Do not, then, if you pity Theomnestus for the obloquy that he deserves, forgive him for outrages and expressions whereby he has broken the laws. For what greater misfortune could befall me, after I have had such shameful charges brought against me, and in relation to such a father?

He was general many times, and shared your peril besides in many a conflict; neither did his person fall into the hands of the enemy, nor was he ever convicted by his fellow-citizens at any audit of his service, but at the age of sixty-seven he lost his life under the oligarchy for loyalty to your people.

Is there not good cause to feel anger against the man who has made such statements, and to defend my father as included in this calumny? For what more distressing fate could overtake him than this,—after being slain by his enemies, to bear the reproach of having been destroyed by his children? Even now, gentlemen, the memorials of his valor are hanging in your temples, while those of this man’s and his father’s baseness are seen in the temples of the enemy, so ingrained is cowardice in their nature.

And indeed, gentlemen, the taller and more gallant they are in looks, the more they are deserving of anger. For it is clear that, though strong in their bodies, they are ill in their souls.

I hear, gentlemen, that he is resorting to the argument that he has made these statements in a fit of anger at my having borne witness to the same effect as Dionysius. But your reflection on this, gentlemen, must be that the lawgiver grants no indulgence to anger he punishes the speaker, unless he proves the truth of the statements that he has made. I myself have now borne witness twice in regard to this man; for I was not yet aware that you punished the persons who had seen the deed, but pardoned those who had done the throwing away.

I doubt if on these points there is need to say any more. I request you to condemn Theomnestus, reflecting that no trial could be more serious for me than the present. For although I am now prosecuting for slander, yet at the same casting of your vote I am prosecuted for murdering my father,—I who alone, as soon as I was certified to be of age,[*](By the Council, when he was eighteen years old.) indicted the Thirty before the Areopagus.

Remembering these reasons, vindicate me and my father, and also the established laws and the oaths that you have sworn.