[141]
In your presence, men of Athens, I now invoke all the gods and
goddesses whose domain is the land of Attica. I invoke also Pythian Apollo, the ancestral divinity of
this city, and I solemnly beseech them all that, if I shall speak the truth now,
and if I spoke truth to my countrymen when first I saw this miscreant putting
his hand to that transaction—for I knew it, I knew it
instantly—they may grant to me prosperity and salvation. But if with
malice or in the spirit of personal rivalry I lay against him any false charge,
I pray that they may dispossess me of everything that is good.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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