39
If, now, my opponent can point out a law which gives children the right to choose their own names, you would rightly give the verdict for which he asks. But if the law, which you all know as well as I, gives parents the right not only to give the name in the first place, but also to cancel it and renounce it by public declaration, if they please; and if I have shown that my father, who had this authority under the law, gave to the defendant the name Boeotus, and to me the name Mantitheus, how can you render any other verdict than that for which I ask?
40
Nay, more, in cases which are not covered by the laws, you have sworn that you will decide as in your judgement is most just, so that even if there were no law concerning these matters, you would have been bound to cast your votes in my favor. For who is there among you who has given the same name to two of his children? Who, that is as yet childless, will do so?
41
No one, assuredly. Well then, what in your minds you have decided to be right for your own children, it is your sacred duty to decide also in our case. Therefore on the basis of what you deem most just, on the basis of the laws, your oaths, and the admissions this man has made, my request of you, men of Athens, is reasonable, and my claims just; while my opponent asks what is not only unreasonable, but contrary to established usage.
