Kitap 40
9
"Brother, for a long time we have not lived together as table-companions. You, in any case, want to be king. This hope of yours is baffled by my seniority, by the right of primogeniture universally recognised, by the time-honoured usage of the Macedonians. You cannot surmount these barriers except through my blood. You are trying every device, every expedient. Hitherto, either my watchfulness or my good luck has stood in the way of your becoming a fratricide. Yesterday, on the occasion of the propitiatory sacrifice, the maneuvers and the sham-fight, you made the fight all but a fatal one, and nothing averted my death but the fact that I allowed my men and myself to be defeated. From that hostile encounter you wanted to inveigle me to your banquet, as though it had been merely brotherly sport. Do you believe, father, that it would have been amongst unarmed guests that I should have banqueted, when they came in arms to banquet with me? Do you believe that I was in no danger from their swords at night, after they had almost killed me with their staves whilst you were looking on? Why, Demetrius, do you come at that hour of the night, why do you come as an enemy to one who is in an angry mood, why do you come accompanied by youths with hidden swords? I did not dare to trust myself to you even as a guest, am I to admit you when you come with an armed band? Had my door been open, you, my father, would now be arranging my funeral obsequies instead of listening to my complaints. "I am not trumping up charges as a prosecutor, nor am I arguing upon questionable evidence. Surely he does not deny that he came to my door with a large crowd, or that he was accompanied by men with concealed swords. Send for the men whose names I give you. Those who have dared so far will go to any lengths, they will not, however, venture upon a denial. If I had caught them in my vestibule with their swords and brought them to you, you would have regarded it as a clear case; take their confession as equivalent to their being caught in the act.
