and he was ready to show his accounts. Just imagine what the position would have been if, after all the Athenians had been told that Diotimus had forty talents, something had then happened to him before he reached our shores. His relatives would then have been in the gravest danger, if they had been obliged to defend themselves against that monstrous slander without any knowledge of the facts of the case. So, for your being deceived in many people even now, and indeed for the ruin that some have unjustly incurred, you have to thank those who make light of telling lies and are bent on bringing malicious charges against their fellows.

For I suppose you know that Alcibiades held command for four or five years411-407 B.C. in succession, keeping the upper hand and winning victories over the Lacedaemonians: the cities thought well to give him twice as much as any other commander, so that some people supposed that he had more than a hundred talents. But when he diedHe was murdered in Phrygia, 404 B.C. he left evidence that this was not true: for he bequeathed a smaller fortune to his children than he had inherited himself from his guardians.

Well now, that such things were common in former times is easily judged. But they say that it is the best and wisest men who are most willing to change their minds. If, therefore, our statements are deemed to be reasonable and the proofs that we have adduced satisfactory, gentlemen of the jury, show your pity by all manner of means. For, grievous as was the weight of this slander, we always expected to conquer with the help of truth: but if you should altogether refuse to entertain our plea, we felt ourselves without a single hope of deliverance.

Ah, by the Olympian gods, gentlemen, choose rather to deliver us with justice than to ruin us with injustice; and believe that those men speak the truth who, though keeping silent, show themselves throughout their lives self-respecting and just.

In regard to the charge itself, and the manner in which they became our kinsmen, and the fact that Aristophanes’ means were not sufficient for the expedition, but were supplemented by loans from others, you have heard our statements and testimonies: I propose next to tell you briefly about myself. I am now thirty years old, and never yet have I either had a dispute with my father or been the subject of a complaint from any citizen; and although I live near the market-place, I have never once been seen in either law-court or council-chamber until I met with this misfortune.