In Defence of Lycophron (14-18)

So Ariston may say whatever he pleases, gentlemen of the jury, and invent lies against me, but surely your verdict upon me must be based, not on the slanders of the prosecutor, but on a review of the whole of my life. No one in the city, whether good or bad, can deceive the community in which you live. Indeed the most reliable testimonial of character which a man can have is his past career, especially in refuting charges like the present.

Where the crime is one which can be committed at any time during a man’s life it should be considered in the light of the particular accusation made. But adultery is a practice which no man can begin after fifty. Either he has been a loose-liver for a long lime—and let these men prove that that is true of me—or else the charge may be presumed false.

Now I, gentlemen of the jury, have lived with you in Athens all my life. I have never been subjected to any discreditable charge, nor have I brought an accusation against another citizen. I have not been defendant or prosecutor in any lawsuit, but have always been a keen horsebreeder, consistently overtaxing my strength and my resources.[*] I have been crowned for bravery by the order of knights and by my colleagues in office.

For you appointed me, gentlemen of the jury, first as Phylarch and later as Cavalry Leader at Lemnos.[*] I held the command there for two years, the only cavalry leader who has ever done so, and prolonged my stay for a third, as I did not wish, in exacting the pay for the horsemen rashly, to burden citizens in financial straits.

During that time no one there brought an action against me, either private or public. In fact I was crowned three times by the inhabitants of Hephaestia and as many times more by those of Myrine. These facts should satisfy you, in the present trial, that the charges against me are false. No man can be good in Lemnos if he is bad in Athens, and you had no poor opinion of me when you dispatched me there and made me responsible for two of your own cities.