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

We therefore owe our isolation to the merits of our kinsmen and the calamities of the State. Bearing all this in mind, you ought to succor us, judging those to be rightful recipients of your favours under democracy who bore their share of calamity under oligarchy.

I also call upon the Commissioners here to be kind to us: let them remember that time when, expelled from your native land and deprived of your property, you esteemed most highly the men who gave their lives for you, and you prayed to the gods that you might be able to show your gratitude to their children.

So we, sons and relatives of those who have been foremost to meet danger in the cause of freedom, ask this return of your gratitude today, and call upon you not to ruin us unjustly, but much rather to succor those who have shared in the common calamities. Now I beg and beseech and implore you to grant us what we claim. For it is no slight matter that we have at stake: it is the whole of our possessions.