On Behalf of Euphiletus (4-6)

Again, as for myself, no one could imagine me to be so completely insane as to bear false witness in favor of Euphiletus with the result that I should have to share my patrimony with a larger number of heirs. For I should never hereafter be at liberty to plead that Euphiletus is not my brother; for none of you would listen to me for a moment, if, after now bearing witness that he is my brother and making myself liable to the penalties of the law,[*] I should hereafter openly contradict this assertion.

Thus, gentlemen, the probabilities are in favor of my having given true evidence, and the same is true of the other relatives. For observe, in the first place, that the husbands of our sisters would never have given false evidence in favor of Euphiletus; for his mother had become stepmother to our sisters, and it is customary for differences to exist between stepmothers and the daughters of a former marriage; so that, if their stepmother had borne Euphiletus to any man other than our father, our sisters would never have allowed their husbands to give evidence in his favor.

Again, our uncle, a relative on our mother's side and no kinsman of Euphiletus, would never have consented, judges, to give in favor of Euphiletus's mother evidence which was manifestly against our interests, if Euphiletus were an alien whom we are attempting to introduce into the family as our own brother. Furthermore, judges, how could any of you convict of perjury Demaratus here and Hegemon and Nicostratus, who, in the first place, will never be shown to have lent themselves to any base action, and who, secondly, being our kinsmen and knowing us all, have each borne witness to his own relationship to Euphiletus?