[129]
I am at no
loss for information about you and your family; but I am at a loss where to
begin. Shall I relate how your father Tromes was a slave in the house of Elpias,
who kept an elementary school near the Temple of Theseus, and how he wore
shackles on his legs and a timber collar round his neck? or how your mother
practised daylight nuptials in an outhouse next door to Heros the
bone-setter,1 and so
brought you up to act in tableaux vivants and to excel in minor parts on the
stage? However, everybody knows that without being told by me. Shall I tell you
how Phormio the boatswain, a slave of Dio of Phrearrii, uplifted her from that
chaste profession? But I protest that, however well the story becomes you, I am
afraid I may be thought to have chosen topics unbecoming to myself.
1 Heros the bone-setter: this interpretation is doubtful; it assumes （1） identity with a person called, more respectfully, Heros the physician, in a similar passage of the speech On the Embassy, Dem. 19; （2） thatκαλαμίτηςmay mean one who uses splints （κάλαμοι）. Otherwise: near the shrine （or statue） of the hero Calamites— unknown elsewhere, but perhaps identical with the Lycian “Hero Physician.” See Essay 6. in Goodwin's edition.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.