If I am guilty, gentlemen, I expect to get no indulgence; but if I prove my innocence as regards the counts of Simon’s affidavit, while for the rest you consider my attitude towards the boy too senseless for a man of my age, I ask you not to think the worse of me for that, since you know that all mankind are liable to desire, but that he may be the best and most temperate who is able to bear its misfortunes in the most orderly spirit. All my efforts in this way have been thwarted by the plaintiff Simon, as I shall make clear to you. We felt desire, gentlemen, for Theodotus, a Plataean boy; and while I looked to win his affection by kindness, this man thought by outrage and defiance of the law to compel him to accede to his wishes. To tell all the ill-treatment that the boy has suffered from him would be a lengthy business: but I think it proper that you should hear the numerous offences he has committed against myself. Hearing that the boy was at my house, he came there at night in a drunken state, broke down the doors, and entered the women’s rooms: within were my sister and my nieces, whose lives have been so well-ordered that they are ashamed to be seen even by their kinsmen. Athenian women usually lived in seclusion, and only left the house to attend a religious ceremony or festival: cf. Lys. 1.20 ; Thuc. 2.45 .