4
My age, gentlemen, is thirty-two, and your return to the city403 B.C. was nineteen years ago. It will be seen, therefore, that I was thirteen when my father was put to death by the Thirty. At that age I neither knew what an oligarchy was, nor would have been able to rescue him from the wrong that he suffered.The speaker was thus too young either to be implicated in the political murder of his father or to aid in his protection.
5
Besides, I could have had no true motive in the monetary way for making designs upon him: for my elder brother Pantaleon took over everything, and on becoming our guardian he deprived us of our patrimony; so that I have many good reasons, gentlemen, for wishing my father alive. Now, although it is necessary to mention those reasons, there is no need to dwell on them at length; for you all know well enough that I am speaking the truth. Nevertheless I will produce witnesses to those facts.
6
Witnesses Well, it may be, gentlemen, that he will make no defence on these points, but will state again to you what he had the boldness to say before the arbitratorAt the preliminary trial, which was subject to appeal to a higher court. See Introduction, p. 196, note b.—that it is not a use of a forbidden word to say that someone has killed his father, since the law does not prohibit that, but does disallow the use of the word murderer.
