On the Confiscation of the Property Of The Brother Of Nicias: Peroration

Now you must reflect, gentlemen of the jury, on the character that we bear as citizens ourselves, and also on the family of which we come, when we claim your pity for the wrongs that we have suffered and an award of our rights. For we are contending, not merely for our property, but for our citizenship as well: we must know whether we are to have our portion in the democracy of our city. So first let me remind you of our uncle, Nicias:

in all that he did for your common weal while using his own judgement, he will be found everywhere to have been the author of many benefits to the State, and to have inflicted a great number of grievous injuries on the enemy; but in all that he was compelled to do, not of his own wish but against his will, he bore no slight part of the injuries himself, while the responsibility for the disaster ought in fairness to lie with those who persuaded you,[*](The reference is to the Sicilian expedition in 415 B.C., which Nicias had opposed; cf. Thuc. 6.8 ff.)

seeing that of his own loyalty to you and of his merit he afforded proof in your successes and your enemies’ failures. For as your general, he took many cities, and many were the splendid trophies of the foe’s defeats that he set up; to mention them severally would be wearisome.

Now Eucrates, his brother, who was my father, just after the last sea-fight[*](At Aegospotami, 405 B.C.) had taken place, gave signal evidence of his loyal devotion to your democracy. For after our defeat in the sea-fight he was elected general by you and, although invited to take part in the oligarchy by those who were plotting against the people, he refused to listen to them.

He was involved in the kind of crisis[*](The oligarchic revolution of the Thirty, 404 B.C.) in which the majority of men not only shift about according to circumstances, but also yield to the vagaries of fortune. The democracy was faced with failure; he was not being driven out of public life, nor did he nurse any private enmity against those who were about to be the rulers. And yet, although it was open to him to become one of the Thirty and to have as much power as any man, he chose rather to perish in working for your safety than to endure the sight of the demolition of the walls, the surrender of the ships to the enemy and the enslavement of your people.

And, not long after that, Niceratus, who was my cousin and Nicias’s son, and a loyal supporter of your democracy, was arrested and put to death by the Thirty: neither his birth nor his means nor his age could be thought to disqualify him for a part in the government; but it was supposed that he was in such high credit with your democracy on his own account as well as on that of his ancestors that he could never be zealous for a different government.