[18]
Well then; suppose he were summoned on the charge of
being an alien. And he does make himself obnoxious to many, and the way in which
my father was compelled to adopt him is no secret. You, on your part, while my
father was refusing to acknowledge him, believed that his mother was telling the
truth; but when, with his parentage thus established, he makes himself odious,
you will some day on the contrary conclude that my father's story was true.
Again, what if my opponent, in the expectation of being convicted of perjury for
the services1 which he freely grants his associates, should allow the
suit to go by default? Do you think it would be a slight injury that I should be
my whole life long a sharer of his reputation and his doings?
1 The “service” at which the speaker hints is presumably the bearing of false testimony.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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