In Defence of Lycophron
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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each man in private and in public life,
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and also in the law and in the oath which bids you give an equal hearing to the prosecution and to the defence.
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to conduct the prosecution,
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allow me also in the same way to follow out, so far as I am able, the line of defence which I have chosen. I must ask you all, while I am speaking, to refrain from interrupting me with:
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Why are you telling us this?
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And do not add anything of your own to the prosecution’s argument; rather
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attend
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to the defence
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nor is it true that the law, while allowing freedom to join in the prosecution of men on trial, denies the right to share in their defence. I do not intend to waste words before coming to the point, and shall therefore proceed to the actual defence, after praying the gods to help me and bring me safely through the present trial and requesting you, gentlemen of the jury, first
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either the betrayal of dockyards, the burning of public buildings, or the seizure of the Acropolis
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Euphemus
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first
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when the husband died
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of
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Phlya
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from him
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that the woman
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he had left his wife with child, which did not entail any breach of the law. But if their interpretation of this story tallied with that given by Ariston in the impeachment, they
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should not surely have prevented the nearest relatives from ejecting Euphemus. They ought to have let them do so. Whereas now, by behaving as they did, they have by their own action furnished evidence that the charge against me is false. Besides, is it not strange that if anything had happened to the child at birth, or after, they would have adhered firmly to this will, in which
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nor is it possible for him to deny his own handwriting
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to be sluggish