5
It is, therefore, just on many accounts that you should aid me who am being wronged, and fitting that you should feel indignation against the men, who—O Earth and the Gods—when they need not have come into court at all had they done what is fair, are not ashamed to remind you of any improper acts of my father, or of wrongs which they committed against him, but even force me to go to law with them. To make you understand clearly that it is they, not I, who are to blame for this, I will set forth to you the facts of the case from the beginning with the utmost possible brevity.
6
My mother, men of the jury, was the daughter of Polyaratus, of CholargusCholargus was a deme of the tribe Acamantis., and sister of Menexenus, and Bathyllus and Periander. Her father gave her in marriage to Cleomedon, son of Cleon,The famous demagogue, known to us from Thucydides and Aristophanes. adding a talent as her marriage-portion; and at the first she dwelt with him as his wife, and bore him three daughters and one son, Cleon. After this her husband died, and she left his family, receiving back her marriage-portion.
7
Her brothers, Menexenus and.Bathyllus (for Periander was still a boy) then gave her again in marriage with the talent for her dowry, and she dwelt with my father as his wife. There were born to them myself and another brother, younger than I, who died while still a child.
7
To prove that I am speaking the truth, I will first bring forward witnesses to establish these facts.
7
The Witnesses
8
My father, then, having thus married my mother, maintained her as his wife in his own house; and he brought me up and showed me a father’s affection such as you also all show to your children. But with Plangon, the mother of these men, he formed a connection of some sort or other (it is not for me to say what it was);
