Against Simon (6-10)

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. [*]

This man, then, carried insolence to such a pitch that he refused to go away until the people who appeared on the spot, and those who had accompanied him, feeling it a monstrous thing that he should intrude on young girls and orphans, drove him out by force. Far from repenting of his outrageous proceedings, he found out where we were dining, and acted in the strangest, the most incredible manner, as it might seem to those unacquainted with his madness.

He called me out of doors, and, as soon as I went outside, made an immediate attempt to strike me. When I beat him off, he stood out of reach and began pelting me with stones. He missed me, but Aristocritus, who had accompanied him to my house, was struck by a stone which broke his forehead.

So I, gentlemen, feeling myself grossly ill-used, but ashamed—as I have already told you before—at my misfortune, put up with it, and preferred to go without satisfaction for the offences rather than be thought lacking in sense by the citizens: for I knew that, while his actions would be found appropriate to his wickedness, I should be derided for the treatment I received by a number of people who are in the habit of resenting my ambition that one may show for a good standing in the city.

I was so perplexed, gentlemen, in face of this man’s lawless behavior, that I decided that it would be best for me to reside abroad. So I took the boy (since the whole truth must be told), and left the city. When I thought it was time enough for Simon to have forgotten the young fellow, and also to have repented of his former offences, I came back again.