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§§ 3—8. Narrative (διήγησις). My father Pasion left behind him at his death a large property which got into the hands of Phormion, who also married Pasion's widow, my mother Archippe, during my absence from Athens on public service. On my return, I threatened Phormion with legal proceedings in consequence of this marriage, but my case did not come on; and afterwards a reconciliation was brought about. Subsequently, however, on Phormion's refusing to fulfil his engagements and attempting to rob me of the banking-stock leased him by my father, I was compelled to prosecute him at the earliest opportunity. Phormion thereupon put in a special plea in bar of action, and brought forward false witnesses to show that I gave him a discharge from all further claims, and to attest to a lease which in fact was a fabrication and to a will that never existed. The result of his plea, which gave him the advantage of the first hearing, was that the jury would not listen to me at all; I was fined for failing to make good my case, and left the court in high dudgeon at my ill-treatment. On reflexion, however, I feel that the jury, in their ignorance of the real facts, could not, on the evidence, have found any other verdict; but I have a right to be indignant with the false witnesses who brought about that result,—and with Stephanus in particular, whose evidence shall be read to the court. (The evidence is read.) ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί occurs only 11 times in this speech, and only twice in Or. 36 (Huettner). δημοσίᾳ To be taken with ἀποδημοῦντος, ‘cum publice (in causa publica) abessem’; Or. 48 § 24 δημοσίᾳ τούτου ἀποδημοῦντος στρατευομένου. The fondness of the Greeks for participles is shown by the addition of τριηραρχοῦντος which is subordinate to, and explanatory of, ἀποδημοῦντος. Or. 36 § 25, and Madv. Gk Synt. § 176, d. This trierarchy of Apollodorus may almost certainly be connected with the negociations between Athens and the elder Dionysius towards the close of his career. It appears from a decree discovered near the Propylaea in 1837, and restored by A.Kirchhoff in the Philologus for 1857 (xii p. 571—8), that Atheman ambassadors were sent to Syracuse in the summer of B.C. 369 and in B.C. 368. Cf. C. I. A. II I 51, 52; Dittenberger, Sylloge, ed. 1, 72, 73. The trierarchy may be identified with that of Or. 53 § 5, and probably belongs to the later of these two embassies in B.C. 368, as we read in Or. 46 § 21 ἐγὼ μὲν ἀπεδήμουν τριηραρχῶν, τετελευτήκει δ᾽ ὁ πατὴρ πάλαι, ὅτε οὗτος ἔγημε. πάλαι, though a vague woid, shows at any rate that a considerable time elapsed between the death of Pasion in B.C. 370 (Or. 46 § 13), and his widow's marriage with Phoimion. (Im. Hermann, de tempore, etc. p. 9; A. Schaefer, Dem. und seine Zeit, III 2, 146; and Lortzing, Apollodorus, p. 3.) δ̀ν τρόπον δὲ (sc. ἔγημε）—ἀκριβῶς εἰπεῖν Ct. § 27 διεφθἀρκει ἣν ἐμοὶ μὲν οὐ καλὸν λέγειν. (Similarly in 40 § 8 τῇ τούτων μητρὶ ἐπλησίασεν ὅντινα δή ποτ᾽ οὖν τρόπον: οὐ γὰρ ἐμὸν τοῦτο λέγειν ἐστί.) This affectation of dutiful delicacy of feeling towards his mother in the early portions of the speech is rather inconsistent with the apparently gratuitous insinuation towards its close, where he broaches the suspicion that his own brother Pasicles (who was eight years old at his father Pasion's death) was really her son by Phormion (§ 84). οὐκ ἴσως 21 §§ 15, 126; 14 § 23.—ἀκριβῶς εἰπεῖν, 8 § 38; 41 § 17.—ᾐσθόμην καὶ . εἶδον, 18 § 133 τὸ πρᾶγμ᾽ αἰσθομένη καὶ ἰδοῦσα.—ἀγανακτήσας καὶ χαλεπῶς ἐνεγκών, 21 §§ 108, 123; 23 § 167. ἐνεγκών, 21 § 48; 24 § 141; 23 § 170; 54 § 9; ἐνέγκαντες and ἐπενέγκας in nonDemosthenic speeches, 49 § 51; 59 § 5 (Huettner). δίκην ἰδίαν . γραφὴν ὔβρεως Cf. Or. 54 § 1, ad fin.
Select Private Orations of Demosthenes, Part II. J. E. Sandys, Litt. D., and F. A. Paley, M.A., LL.D. 1910. Cambridge University Press.
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