Mantitheus Against Boeotus II (1-5)

Nothing is more painful, men of the jury, than when a man is addressed by name as brother of certain persons, whom in fact he regards as enemies, and when he is compelled, on account of the many cruel wrongs which he has suffered at their hands, to come into court; as is my case now.

For instance, I have not only had the misfortune in the beginning that Plangon, the mother of these men, by deceit and manifest perjury, compelled my father to bring himself to acknowledge them, and that consequently I was robbed of two-thirds of my inheritance; but, in addition to this, I have been driven by these men out of the house of my fathers, in which I was born and brought up, and into which they were admitted, not by my father, but by myself after his death;

and I am being robbed of my mother’s dowry, for which I am now bringing suit, although I have myself given them satisfaction in all the matters in which they made claims upon me, except some trifling cross-demands which they have maliciously brought against me on account of this action, as will be perfectly clear to you also; yet in the course of eleven years I have been unable to obtain from them a reasonable settlement, and so at length I have had recourse to you for help.

I beg you all, men of the jury, to listen to me with goodwill, while I speak as best I can; and if I seem to you to have suffered cruel wrongs, to pardon me for seeking to recover what is my own, especially as it is for a marriage-portion for my daughter. For it so happened that I married at my father’s request when I was only eighteen, and that I have a daughter who is already of marriageable age.

It is, therefore, just on many accounts that you should aid me who am being wronged, and fitting that you should feel indignation against the men, who—O Earth and the Gods—when they need not have come into court at all had they done what is fair, are not ashamed to remind you of any improper acts of my father, or of wrongs which they committed against him, but even force me to go to law with them. To make you understand clearly that it is they, not I, who are to blame for this, I will set forth to you the facts of the case from the beginning with the utmost possible brevity.