A Friend Pleading for Phormio (47-48)

You disgrace yourself and your dead parents, and you cast reproach upon the state, and instead of adorning and cherishing this good fortune[*] which your father, and afterward Phormio have come to enjoy through the kindness of these men, so that it might have appeared as the highest of honors for those who gave it and for you who obtained it, you drag it into public view, you point the finger of scorn at it, you criticize it; you all but taunt the Athenians for admitting to citizenship a person like yourself.

Indeed you have come to such a pitch of insanity—what other name can one find for it?—as not to see that at this moment we, who claim that, since Phormio has received his freedom, it should not be remembered against him that he once belonged to your father, are speaking in your interest; while you, in insisting that he should never be on a footing of equality with yourself, are speaking against yourself; for the same rule, which you lay down as just for yourself against Phormio, will be advanced against you by those who at the first were the masters of your father.

To prove that Pasio also was somebody’s slave, and that he afterwards won his freedom in the same manner in which Phormio won his from you, take, please, these depositions, which show that Pasio belonged to Archestratus.

The Depositions