Against Nicomachus

It is your duty, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, to remember what was the ancestry of Nicomachus, and also how ungrateful has been his treatment of you with his illegal acts, and to punish him: so, since you have not made him pay the penalty for each one of them, exact requital now, at any rate, for them all.

It may be, gentlemen, that, failing to find a plea for his own defence, he will try to slander me: but I would ask you only to credit this man’s account of my life when, on having to defend myself, I fail to convict him of falsehood. If by chance he should venture on a repetition of what he stated before the Council,—that I was one of the Four Hundred,—reflect that on the basis of such statements as this the Four Hundred will number more than a thousand; for on those who were still but children at that time, or were not residing here, this aspersion is commonly cast by persons of slanderous intent.

But for my part, so far was I from being one of the Four Hundred that I was not even included in the list of the Five Thousand. And I consider it monstrous that, although in a suit concerning private contracts, had I convicted him as plainly as here of wrongdoing, he would not even himself have expected to obtain an acquittal by resorting to such a defence, he now, on his trial for matters of public interest, is to count on escaping punishment at your hands by accusing me.

Moreover, I find it astonishing that Nicomachus should think fit to stir up resentment against others in this criminal way, when I mean to prove that he hatched mischief against the people. And now listen to me; for it is justifiable, gentlemen of the jury, to admit such accusations in the case of men who, having combined at that time to subvert the democracy, would represent themselves today as democrats.

After the loss of our ships,[*](At Aegospotami, 405 B.C.) when the revolution was being arranged, Cleophon[*](See Lys. 13.7, note.) reviled the Council, declaring that it was in conspiracy[*](i.e., with the oligarchs.) and was not seeking the best interests of the State. Satyrus of Cephisia,[*](An Attic township about 9 miles north-east of Athens.) one of the Council, persuaded them to arrest him and hand him over to the court.