On Behalf of Euphiletus (5-9)

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?

I should like, then, to hear from the most respectable of our opponents, whether he can produce any other sources of evidence to prove his own Athenian citizenship than those which we are employing in support of Euphiletus. I do not think he could urge any plea except that his mother was a citizen and a married woman and his father a citizen, and he would produce his kinsmen to bear witness that he was speaking the truth.

Next, judges, if it were our opponents who were on their trial, they would demand that you should believe the evidence of their kinsmen rather than their accusers; and now, when we produce all these proofs, are they going to demand that you should believe what they say, rather than Euphiletus's father and me and my brother and the members of the ward and all our kindred? Furthermore, our opponents are acting out of personal spite without exposing themselves to any risk, while we are all rendering ourselves liable to the penalties of the law in giving evidence.

And in addition to the depositions, judges, in the first place, the mother of Euphiletus, who is admitted by our opponents to be a citizen, expressed before the arbitrators her willingness to swear an oath in the sanctuary of Delphinian Apollo that Euphiletus here was the issue of herself and our father; and who had better means of knowing than she? Secondly, judges, our father, who naturally is better able to recognize his own son than anyone else except his mother, was ready on the former occasion, and is ready now, to swear that Euphiletus here is his son by a mother who is a citizen and legally married.