by Demosthenes
Seeing, then, that we are engaged in so unequal a contest, we beg you all to come to our aid and to make it clear to all men that, whether a boy or an old man, or one of any age, comes before you in accordance with the laws, he will obtain complete justice. The honorable course for you, men of the jury, is, not to put the laws or your own selves in the power of those who speak, but to keep the speakers in your power, and to make a distinction between those who speak well and lucidly, and those who speak what is just; for it is concerning justice that you have sworn to cast your votes. [62] For no man surely will persuade you that there will be any lack of politicians like the defendant, or that the state will be less well administered because of that. Indeed the opposite is the case, as I hear from men older than myself. For they tell us that the state fared best when men of moderation and restraint were in public life. Would one find Theocrines and his fellows to be good counsellors? No; they say not a word in the assembly, but get money by indicting those who do speak there. [63] And this is an extraordinary thing: they make their living by pettifoggery, yet they say they get nothing from the state, and, while they possessed nothing before coming to you, now that they are well-to-do they do not even feel grateful to you, but go about saying that the people are fickle and surly and thankless, as if you prospered because of these men, and not they because of the people! But after all it is natural for them to say this, when they see how easy-going you are. For you have never punished any one of them in the way his wickedness deserves, but you put up with their saying that the safety of the democracy comes from those who bring indictments and baseless actions; than whom no more pernicious class exists. [64] For in what could anyone find these people useful to the state? They punish wrongdoers, it will be said, and through them the number of wrongdoers is lessened. Not so, men of the jury; it is even increased; for those who are minded to do evil, knowing that a portion of their gains must be given to these men, of necessity determine to exact more from the rest, that they may have enough to spend, not only upon themselves, but upon these men as well. [65] Against all others who in their wrongdoing work harm upon those who come into contact with them men may protect themselves, some by setting a guard over their household effects, others by staying at home at night, so as to suffer no harm, and again, by taking precautions in one way or another men can guard against the plots of those who wish to work them harm; but against pettifoggers like this man — whither can one go to win security from them? The things which are a means of escape from other crimes are the stock-in-trade of these men — the laws, that is, the courts, witnesses, assemblies. It is here that they show their strength, counting as friends those who offer them money, and the quiet and wealthy people as their foes. [66]
Remember, therefore, men of the jury, the wickedness of these men, and remember also our ancestors, of whom Epichares, my grandfather, was victor in the foot-race for boys at Olympia and won a crown for the city, and enjoyed good report among your ancestors as long as he lived; whereas we, thanks to this god-detested fellow, have been deprived of our citizenship in that state [67] in defence of which Aristocrates, son of Scelius, the uncle of my grandfather Epichares, whose name my brother here bears, performed many glorious deeds, when our country was at war with the Lacedaemonians. He razed to the ground Eetioneia, into which Critias and his faction were about to receive the Lacedaemonians, destroyed the fortress raised against us, and restored the people to their country, incurring himself dangers not like those which we are incurring, but dangers in which even disaster is glorious; and he put a stop to those who were plotting against you. [68] For his sake, even if we had been like this fellow Theocrines, you would with good right have preserved us; to say nothing of our being better than he and of our pleading a cause which is just.
We will not burden you by constantly repeating these things, for the defendant has brought us into such plight that, as I said at the outset, we have no hope of sharing in that freedom of speech which is granted even to aliens. [69] In order, therefore, that, if we get nothing else, we may at least have the satisfaction of seeing the defendant also reduced to silence, come to our aid; have pity on those of our family who have died for their country; compel Theocrines to make his defence on the questions raised by the indictment itself; and show yourselves as judges of his words such as he showed himself as our accuser. [70] For he, after deceiving the jury, refused to propose any moderate penalty for my father, although I pleaded with him earnestly and clasped his knees in entreaty; but, as if my father had betrayed our country, he fixed the penalty at ten talents. We, therefore, beg and implore you: give us a just verdict.
Come to our aid, anyone who has anything to say, and plead for us. Mount the platform.
APOLLODORUS AGAINST NEAERA
Translated by Norman W. DeWitt
Many indeed are the reasons, men of Athens, which urged me to prefer this indictment against Neaera, and to come before you. We have suffered grievous wrongs at the hands of Stephanus and have been brought by him into the most extreme peril, I mean my father-in-law, myself, my sister, and my wife; so that I shall enter upon this trial, not as an aggressor, but as one seeking vengeance. For Stephanus was the one who began our quarrel without ever having been wronged by us in word or deed. I wish at the outset to state before you the wrongs which we have suffered at this hands, in order that you may feel more indulgence for me as I seek to defend myself and to show you into what extreme danger we were brought by him of losing our country and our civic rights. [2]
When the people of Athens passed a decree granting the right of citizenship to Pasion and his descendants on account of services to the state, my father favored the granting of the people’s gift, and himself gave in marriage to Apollodorus, son of Pasion, his own daughter, my sister, and she is the mother of the children of Apollodorus. Inasmuch as Apollodorus acted honorably toward my sister and toward all of us, and considered us in truth his relatives and entitled to share in all that he had, I took to wife his daughter, my own niece. [3] After some time had elapsed Apollodorus was chosen by lot as a member of the senate; and when he had passed the scrutiny and had sworn the customary oath, there came upon the city a war and a crisis so grave that, if victors, you would be supreme among the Greek peoples, and would beyond possibility of dispute have recovered your own possessions and have crushed Philip in war; but, if your help arrived too late and you abandoned your allies, allowing your army to be disbanded for want of money, you would lose these allies, forfeit the confidence of the rest of the Greeks, and risk the loss of your other possessions, Lemnos and Imbros, and Scyros and the Chersonese. [4] You were at that time on the point of sending your entire force to Euboea and Olynthus, and Apollodorus, being one of its members, brought forward in the senate a bill, and carried it as a preliminary decree to the assembly, proposing that the people should decide whether the funds remaining over from the state’s expenditure should be used for military purposes or for public spectacles. For the laws prescribed that, when there was war, the funds remaining over from state expenditures should be devoted to military purposes, and Apollodorus believed that the people ought to have power to do what they pleased with their own; and he had sworn that, as member of the senate, he would act for the best interests of the Athenian people, as you all bore witness at that crisis. [5] For when the division took place there was not a man whose vote opposed the use of these funds for military purposes; and even now, if the matter is anywhere spoken of, it is acknowledged by all that Apollodorus gave the best advice, and was unjustly treated. It is, therefore, upon the one who by his arguments deceived the jurors that your wrath should fall, not upon those who were deceived. [6]
This fellow Stephanus indicted the decree as illegal, and came before a court. He produced false witnesses to substantiate the calumnious charge that Apollodorus had been a debtor to the treasury for twenty-five years, and by making all sorts of accusations that were foreign to the indictment won a verdict against the decree.
So far as this is
concerned, if he saw fit to follow this course, we do not take it ill; but when the jurors were casting their votes to fix the penalty, although we begged him to make concessions, he would not listen to us, but fixed the fine at fifteen talents in order to deprive Apollodorus and his children of their civic rights, and to bring my sister and all of us into extremest distress and utter destitution. [7] For the property of Apollodorus did not amount to as much as three talents to enable him to pay in full a fine of such magnitude, yet if it were not paid by the ninth prytany the fine would have been doubled and Apollodorus would have been inscribed as owing thirty talents to the treasury, all the property that he has would have been scheduled as belonging to the state, and upon its being sold Apollodorus himself and his children and his wife and all of us would have been reduced to extremest distress. [8] And more than this, his other daughter would never have been given in marriage; for who would ever have taken to wife a portionless girl from a father who was a debtor to the treasury and without resources? Of such magnitude, you see, were the calamities which Stephanus was bringing upon us all without ever having been wronged by us in any respect. To the jurors, therefore, who at that time decided the matter I am deeply grateful for this at least, that they did not suffer Apollodorus to be utterly ruined, but fixed the amount of the fine at one talent, so that he was able to discharge the debt, although with difficulty. With good reason, then, have we undertaken to pay Stephanus back in the same coin. [9]
For not only did Stephanus seek in this way to bring us to ruin, but he even wished to drive Apollodorus from his country. He brought a false charge against him that, having once gone to Aphidna in search of a runaway slave of his, he had there struck a woman, and that she had died of the blow; and he suborned some slaves and got them to give out that they were men of Cyren, and by public proclamation cited Apollodorus before the court of the Palladium on a charge of murder. [10] This fellow Stephanus prosecuted the case, declaring on oath that Apollodorus had killed the woman with his own hand, and he imprecated destruction upon himself and his race and his house, affirming matters which had never taken place, which he had never seen or heard from any human being. However, since he was proved to have committed perjury and to have brought forward a false accusation, and was shown to have been hired by Cephisophon and Apollophanes to procure for pay the banishment or the disfranchisement of Apollodorus, he received but a few votes out of a total of five hundred, and left the court a perjured man and one with the reputation of a scoundrel. [11]
Now, men of the jury, I would have you ask yourselves, considering in your own minds the natural course of events, what I could have done with myself and my wife and my sister, if it had fallen to the lot of Apollodorus to suffer any of the injuries which this fellow Stephanus plotted to inflict upon him in either the former or the latter trial, or how great were the disgrace and the ruin in which I should have been involved. [12] People came to me privately from all sides exhorting me to exact punishment from my opponent for the wrongs he had done us. They flung in my teeth the charge that I was the most cowardly of humankind, if, being so closely related to them, I did not take vengeance for the injuries done my sister, my father-in-law, my sister’s children, and my own wife, and if I did not bring before you this woman who is guilty of such flagrant impiety toward the gods, of such outrage toward the commonwealth, and of such contempt for your laws, and by prosecuting her and by my arguments convicting her of crime, to enable you to deal with her as you might see fit. [13] And as Stephanus here sought to deprive me of my relatives contrary to your laws and your decrees, so I too have come before you to prove that Stephanus is living with an alien woman contrary to the law; that he has introduced children not his own to his fellow-clansmen and demesmen; that he has given in marriage the daughters of courtesans as though they were his own; that he is guilty of impiety toward the gods; and that he nullifies the right of your people to bestow its own favors, if it chooses to admit anyone to citizenship; for who will any longer seek to win this reward from you and to undergo heavy expense and much trouble in order to become a citizen, when he can get what he wants from Stephanus at less expense, assuming that the result for him is to be the same? [14]
The injuries, then, which I have suffered at the hands of Stephanus, and which led me to prefer this indictment, I have told you. I must now prove to you that this woman Neaera is an alien, that she is living with this man Stephanus as his wife, and that she has violated the laws of the state in many ways. I make of you, therefore, men of the jury, a request which seems to me a proper one for a young man and one without experience in speaking — that you will permit me to call Apollodorus as advocate to assist me in this trial. [15] For he is older than I and is better acquainted with the laws. He has studied all these matters with the greatest care, and he too has been wronged by this fellow Stephanus so that no one can object to his seeking vengeance upon the one who injured him without provocation. It is your duty, in the light of truth itself, when you have heard the exact nature both of the accusation and the defense, then and not till then to reach a verdict which will be in the interest of the gods of the laws, of justice, and of your own selves. [16]
The wrongs done me by Stephanus, men of Athens, which have led me to come forward to accuse this woman Neaera, have been told you by Theomnestus. And that Neaera is an alien woman and is living as his wife with Stephanus contrary to the laws, I wish to make clear to you. First, the clerk shall read you the law under which Theomnestus preferred this indictment and this case comes before you.”Law
If an alien shall live as husband with an Athenian woman in any way or manner whatsoever, he may be indicted before the Thesmothetae by anyone who chooses to do so from among the Athenians having the right to bring charges. And if he be convicted, he shall be sold, himself and his property, and the third part shall belong to the one securing his conviction. The same principle shall hold also if an alien woman shall live as wife with an Athenian, and the Athenian who lives as husband with the alien woman so convicted shall be fined one thousand drachmae.” [17]
You have heard the law, men of the jury, which forbids the union of an alien woman with an Athenian, or of an Athenian woman with an alien in any way or manner whatsoever, or the procreation of children. And if any persons shall transgress this law, it has provided that there shall be an indictment against them before the Thesmothetae, against both the alien man and the alien woman, and that, if convicted, any such person shall be sold. I wish, therefore, to prove to you convincingly from the very beginning that this woman Neaera is an alien. [18]
There were these seven girls who were purchased while they were small children by Nicaretê, who was the freedwoman of Charisius the Elean and the wife of his cook Hippias. She was skilled in recognizing the budding beauty of young girls and knew well how to bring them up and train them artfully; for she made this her profession, and she got her livelihood from the girls. [19] She called them by the name of daughters in order that, by giving out that they were free women, she might exact the largest fees from those who wished to enjoy them. When she had reaped the profit of the youthful prime of each, she sold them, all seven, without omitting one — Anteia and Stratola and Aristocleia and Metaneira and Phila and Isthmias and this Neaera. [20] Who it was who purchased them severally, and how they were set free by those who bought them from Nicaretê, I will tell you in the course of my speech, if you care to hear and if the water in the water-clock holds out. I wish for the moment to return to the defendant Neaera, and prove to you that she belonged to Nicaretê, and that she lived as a prostitute letting out her person for hire to those who wished to enjoy her. [21]
Lysias, the sophist, being the lover of Metaneira, wished, in addition to the other expenditures which he lavished upon her, also to initiate her; for he considered that everything else which he expended upon her was being taken by the woman who owned her, but that from whatever he might spend on her behalf for the festival and the initiation the girl herself would profit and be gra
teful to him. So he asked Nicaretê to come to the mysteries bringing with her Metaneira that she might be initiated, and he promised that he would himself initiate her. [22] When they got here, Lysias did not bring them to his own house, out of regard for his wife, the daughter of Brachyllus and his own niece, and for his own mother, who was elderly and who lived in the same house; but he lodged the two, Metaneira and Nicaretê, with Philostratus of Colonus, who was a friend of his and was as yet unmarried. They were accompanied by this woman Neaera, who had already taken up the trade of a prostitute, young as she was; for she was not yet old enough. [23]