F. A. Paley, Select Private Orations of Demosthenes

δεδωκότων — μὴ εἰσαγώγιμον εἶναι τὴν δίκην [The same words recur with little difference in Or. 38 (πρὸς Ναυσίμαχον) § 1.]

[Or 38 contains several other parallels to the present speech, e.g. 38 § 2, compared with § 3 infr.; 38 § 4, compared with § 18 infr.; 38 § 5 compared with § 19 infr.; also passages in 38 §§ 21 and 22, almost identical with §§ 58—60 infr. A. Schaefer, Dem. u. s. Zeit III B 210 n.]

[Kirk, Demosthenic Style in the Private Orations, refers as follows to the present prooemium:—‘In Or. 37 the speaker makes only an allusion to the ἄφεσις καὶ ἀπαλλαγή; he first suggests the character of his defence, which will rest on his own innocence and on the illegality of the action, and then foreshadows its spirit by a vigorous...denunciation of the audacity of Pantaenetus. This introduction, while stamped with the same character of suggestiveness that belongs to that of Or. 36, is much inferior to it in comprehensiveness and neatness.’ He adds, however, that ‘the admirable prooemium of Or. 37’ in its ‘loftiness of tone and largeness of outline, well balances the magnificent epilogue of the same speech.’]

ἀμφοτέρων Cf. Or. 36 § 25 καὶ γὰρ ἀφῆκε καὶ ἀπήλλαξεν, and the note there (cf. § 19 infra). The two words are very often combined, as πάντων ἀφεθεὶς τῶν ἐγκλημάτων καὶ ἀπαλλαγείς, § 16; ὧν ἂν ἀφῇ καὶ ἀπαλλάξῃ τις, § 19; ἡνίκα ἀφιέμην ὑπὸ τούτου καὶ ἀπηλλαττόμην, § 17. The two acts are very frequently pleaded as the ground of a παραγραφή, e.g. Or. 38 § 5 ἀκούετε, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, τοῦ νόμου σαφῶς λέγοντος ἕκαστα, ὧν μὴ εἶναι δίκας: ὧν ἕν ἐστιν, ὁμοίως τοῖς ἄλλοις κύριον, περὶ ὧν ἄν τις ἀφῇ καὶ ἀπαλλάξῃ, μὴ δικάζεσθαι.

οὐκ οἰόμενος ‘Thinking I ought not to forego this right.’ There is probably a play on ἀφείς, ‘when he had discharged me from further claims, I was not to be discharged from my own claim against him.’

καὶ ἀπηλλαγμένον ‘And that he had been got rid of.’ But it is likely that the two words are an interpolation. The first καὶ is used in reference to πρὸς ἅπασι τοῖς ἄλλοις, but the interpolator was thinking of the formula καὶ ἀφεὶς καὶ ἀπαλλάξας. The passive would require a change of subject from τοῦτον to ἐμέ. Nor does it seem likely that the passive could here have been used in the medial sense, which is wholly inappropriate.—ἐγγενέσθαι, ἐξεῖναι αὐτῷ.

τι τοιοῦτον viz. τὸ ἀφεῖναί με.

ἀλλ̓—ἐπιδεῖξαι To supply, as the context rather requires, οἰόμενος δεῖν would involve εἰσελθόντα for εἰσελθών. Hence we should rather understand δύνασθαι ἐπιδεῖξαι, or perhaps read ἐπιδείξειν.—ἐπὶ, ‘relying on this plea,’ viz. that the action is an illegal one.

ὡς οὐδὲν ἠδίκηκα This, as often happens in παραγραφαί, constitutes the ordinary defence in the direct issue (εὐθυδικία), where there is no bar to the action. He enters the court, he says, to plead a παραγραφή, but besides doing this, he will assert his innocence.