Against Androtion (1-3)

Gentlemen of the jury, Euctemon finding himself wronged by Androtion, thinks it his duty to obtain satisfaction for himself and at the same time to up hold the constitution; and that is what I also shall essay to do, if I am equal to the task. As a matter of fact the outrages that Euctemon has endured, many and serious and utterly illegal as they were, are slighter than the trouble that Androtion has caused me. Euctemon was the object of a plot to get money out of him and to eject him unfairly from an office of your appointment; but if the charges that Androtion trumped up against me had been accepted in your courts, not a single living man would have opened his door to me,

for he accused me of things that anyone would have shrunk from mentioning, unless he were a man of the same stamp as himself, saying that I had killed my own father. He also concocted a public indictment for impiety, not against me directly, but against my uncle, whom he brought to trial, charging him with impiety for associating with me, as though I had committed the alleged acts, and if it had ended in my uncle’s conviction, who would have suffered more grievously at the defendant’s hands than I? For who, whether friend or stranger, would have consented to have any dealings with me? What state would have admitted within its borders a man deemed guilty of such impiety? Not a single one.

Of these charges, then, I cleared myself in your court, not by a narrow margin but so completely that my accuser failed to obtain a fifth of the votes; and upon Androtion I shall endeavor, with your help, to avenge myself today and on every other occasion.

I shall pass over a great deal that I might say about private matters; but there are other matters on which you are now going to give your votes, including not a few injuries which the defendant has done you in dealing as a citizen with public affairs, and these, which Euctemon chose to pass over, but which it is better for you to understand, I shall now try to explain briefly.