[14]
He will tell you that
there are many people in the city, sons of respectable persons, who in sport,
after the manner of young men, have given themselves nicknames, such as
Ithyphalli or Autolecythi,1 and that some of them
are infatuated with mistresses; that his own son is one of these and has often
given and received blows on account of some girl; and that things of this sort
are natural for young men. As for me and all my brothers, he will make out that
we are not only drunken and insolent fellows, but also unfeeling and
vindictive.2
1 These words are best left untranslated （Kennedy, following Auger, renders them “Priapi and Sileni”）. The former suggests gross licentiousness, and the latter, for which various meanings have been proposed, has been plausibly interpreted by Sandys as indicating one who carried his own oil-flask （λήκυθος）. He would thus dispense with the customary slave, and be freed from having even such an one as witness to his wanton doings.
2 Conon, the speaker says, will represent us as being as much addicted to drunkenness and violence as himself and his sons, but surly and vindictive in going to law over such trifling matters!
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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