In Defence of Euxenippus (31-35)

After a scanty reference to the defendant’s written statement you are now bringing fresh charges and incriminations against him, mentioning, amongst other similar allegations, that he tried to marry his daughter to Philocles, that he undertook an arbitration for Demotion, and other similar charges.[*] Your intention is that, if the defence neglect the main indictment and deal with the irrelevant allegations, the jury shall interrupt them by calling: Why do you tell us this? and if they ignore the additional points entirely their case shall be weakened. For any charge that is not refuted is left to be fastened on by the anger of the jury.

The most outrageous feature of your speech was the fact that often during the argument you let fall the remark—you thought that your motive in doing so passed unnoticed, though it was obvious—that Euxenippus was rich, and again, a little later, that he had amassed great wealth dishonestly. It has surely nothing to do with this case whether he is a man of large means or small, and to raise the matter is malicious and implies an unfair assumption regarding the jury, namely that they would base their verdict on other considerations than the point at issue and the question whether the man on trial is offending against you or not.

You do not realize, Polyeuctus, it seems to me, you and those who share your views, that there is not in the world a single democracy or monarch or race more magnanimous than the Athenian people, and that it does not forsake those citizens who are maligned by others, whether singly or in numbers, but supports them.

Let me give an instance. When Tisis of Agryle brought in an inventory of the estate of Euthycrates, amounting to more than sixty talents, on the grounds of its being public property, and again later promised to bring in an inventory of the estate of Philip and Nausicles saying that they had made their money from unregistered mines, this jury were so far from approving such a suggestion or coveting the property of others that they immediately disfranchised the man who tried to slander the accused and did not award him a fifth part of the votes.[*]

Or take a recent instance, if you like, the verdict given by the jury last month, surely a most commendable decision. I refer to the case of Lysander, who reported that the mine of Epicrates of Pallene had been bored beyond the boundaries. It had already been worked for three years and virtually the richest men in Athens had shares in it. Lysander promised to secure three hundred talents for the city, since that, he claimed, was the sum which they had made from the mine.