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[35]
If I were present in person I should be trying to explain these matters to you by word of
mouth, but since I am in such a plight as I pray may be the lot of anyone who has uttered
falsehoods against me to my ruin, I have sent my message in the form of a letter, in the
first place, having supreme regard for your honor and your advantage and, in the second,
because the same goodwill that I felt toward Lycurgus during his lifetime I believe it
right to show that I feel also toward his sons.
[36]
If it
has occurred to anyone that I have a great abundance1 of troubles of my own, I should not
hesitate to say to him that I am as much concerned to defend your interests and to forsake
none of my friends as I am about my own deliverance. Therefore, it is not out of the
abundance of my troubles that I do this, but, actuated by one and the same earnestness and
conviction, I devote my efforts to furthering both these interests of mine and those of
yours with a single purpose, and the abundance I possess is of such a kind as I pray may
abound for those who plot any evil against you. And on these topics I have said enough.
1 In this passage there is a running play of words based upon the common expression ἐκ τῆς περιουσίας, “out of one's abundance.” Note περίεστι . . . ἐκ τοῦ περιόντος . . . περίεστι . . . περιγένοιτο
Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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