previous next

ὑμῖν. .τοῖς γένει πολίταις κ.τ λ. A compliment to the audience, designed to smooth the way for what might otherwise prove an mvidious reference to the money-making of bankers in general and to the wealth of Pasion in particular. ‘For you, gentlemen of Athens, you who are citizens by birth, it is discreditable to prize any amount of money, however large, more highly than that honourable birth (lit. ‘no amount of wealth is honourable for you to accept in place of your free birth’); but those who (like Pasion) have received the rights of citizenship as a free gift either from yourselves or from others, and who, thanks in the first instance to their good fortune, were deemed worthy of the selfsame privileges, by reason of having prospered in money-making and acquired more wealth than their neighbours, must do their best to preserve their pecuniary advantages.’

The sense is, ‘though it would be wrong for those who are citizens by birth to prefer wealth to citizenship, it would also be unreasonable for those who are citizens by adoption to be careless of the wealth which has gained them that very honour and privilege.’

τῇ τύχῃ δ᾽ ἐξ άρχῆς κ.τ.λ. Cf. 45 § 72 τὴν τύχην.. ἀπχη<*>ν λαβω<*>ν ράσης τῆς νῦν ραπούσης εὐδαιμονίας.

αὑτὸν ὑβρίζων κ.τ.λ. Disgracing, outraging, casting contumely on, himself and his family. Though you threatened Phormion with a γραφὴ ὕβρεως for marrying your mother (Or. 45 § 3—4), your father was guilty of no ὕβρις to his family in arranging for that marriage.

ἀνάγκῃ Necessitate, ‘by a family tie.’ Isocr. ad Dem. 10, Lys. 32. 5.

ὑμῖν ..ὑμετέραν ‘You and yours.’ ‘Your family.’ Cf. Or. 55 § 5, n.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
    • Demosthenes, Against Stephanus 1, 3
    • Demosthenes, Against Callicles, 5
    • Lysias, Against Diogeiton, 5
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: