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 Amnesty An 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; and further, that the loser should pay a penalty of one-sixth of the sum at stake. The
 purpose of the penalty was this—that persons who had the effrontery to rake up old grudges
 should not only be convicted of perjury but also, not awaiting the vengeance of the gods,
 should suffer immediate punishment. I thought, therefore, that it was absurd if, under the
 existing laws, I was to permit my calumniator to risk only thirty drachmas, while I myself
 am contesting a suit in which my whole property is at stake. I intend to prove that Callimachus not only is bringing a suit in violation of the terms
 of the Amnesty agreement, but that he is also guilty of falsehood in his charges, and
 furthermore, that we have already resorted to arbitration in the matter at issue. But I
 wish to relate the facts to you from the beginning; for if you learn that he has suffered
 no wrong at my hands, I think that you will be more inclined to defend the Amnesty and be
 more incensed with him. The government of the Ten, who had succeeded the Thirty, was then in control when
 Patrocles, a friend of mine, was the King-Archon, The most
 important of the Athenian nine archons was not the King-Archon, as the name might
 suggest, but the Archon Eponymus, who gave his name to the year in which he held office.
 The King-Archon had charge of public worship and the conduct of certain criminal
 processes. and with him one day I happened to be walking. Patrocles, an enemy of
 Callimachus who is now prosecuting me in this suit, met him as he was carrying a sum of
 money, laid hold of him, and claimed that this money had been left by Pamphilus and
 belonged to the government; for Pamphilus was a member of the party of the Piraeus. Cf. Isoc. 18.2 note 1.