If any others had employed in litigation such a special plea of exception, I should have begun my discourse with the facts themselves; but as the situation is, I am compelled first to speak of the law in accordance with which we have come before the court, that you may cast your votes with an understanding of the issues in our dispute and that no one of you may be surprised that I, although defendant in the case, am speaking prior to the plaintiff.

Now after your return to the city from Piraeus,A reference to the citizens of the democratic party who returned from exile to Athens in 403 B.C. after the defeat of the Thirty Tyrants. They had taken their stand under Thrasybulus in the harbor-city, Piraeus. you saw that some of the citizens were bent upon bringing malicious prosecutions and were attempting to violate the AmnestyAn act passed in 403 B.C. by the citizens, after the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants to put an end to civic discord and to re-establish the democracy.; so, wishing to restrain these persons and to show to all others that you had not made these agreements under compulsion, but because you thought them of advantage to the city, you enacted a law, on the motion of Archinus, to the effect that, if any person should commence a lawsuit in violation of the oaths, the defendant should have the power to enter a plea of exception, the magistrates should first submit this question to the tribunal, and that the defendant who had entered the plea should speak first;