16
To prove the truth of these statements, I will produce before you, as witnesses, the wardsmen, the members of the confraternity, and the demesmen, and, to prove that Menecles was at liberty to adopt me, the clerk of the court shall read you the text of the law in accordance with which the adoption was made. Please read these depositions and the law.
17
Depositions. Laws.
17
The law itself makes it clear that Menecles was free to adopt anyone he liked as his son; that he did adopt a son, the wardsmen, the demesmen, and the members of the confraternity have provided evidence. Thus we have clearly proved it, gentlemen, the witnessPhilonides. has attested the truth of it, and my opponents cannot say a word against the actual fact of the adoption.
18
After this, Menecles began to look about for a wife for me, and said I ought to marry. So I married the daughter of Philonides. Menecles exercised the forethought on my behalf which a father would naturally exercise for his son, and I tended him and respected him as though he were my true father, as also did my wife, so that he praised us to all his fellow-demesmen.
19
That Menecles was not insane or under the influence of a woman but in his right mind when he adopted me, you can easily understand from the following facts. In the first place, my sister, with whom most of my opponent's argument has been concerned, and under whose influence he alleges that Menecles adopted me, had remarried long before the adoption took place, so that, if it had been under her influence that he was adopting his son, he would have adopted one of her boys; for she has two.
