On the Property of the Brother of Nicias: Peroration

Now you must reflect, gentlemen of the jury, on the character that we bear as citizens ourselves, and also on the family of which we come, when we claim your pity for the wrongs that we have suffered and an award of our rights. For we are contending, not merely for our property, but for our citizenship as well: we must know whether we are to have our portion in the democracy of our city. So first let me remind you of our uncle, Nicias: in all that he did for your common weal while using his own judgement, he will be found everywhere to have been the author of many benefits to the State, and to have inflicted a great number of grievous injuries on the enemy; but in all that he was compelled to do, not of his own wish but against his will, he bore no slight part of the injuries himself, while the responsibility for the disaster ought in fairness to lie with those who persuaded you, seeing that of his own loyalty to you and of his merit he afforded proof in your successes and your enemies’ failures. For as your general, he took many cities, and many were the splendid trophies of the foe’s defeats that he set up; to mention them severally would be wearisome. Now Eucrates, his brother, who was my father, just after the last sea-fight had taken place, gave signal evidence of his loyal devotion to your democracy. For after our defeat in the sea-fight he was elected general by you and, although invited to take part in the oligarchy by those who were plotting against the people, he refused to listen to them. He was involved in the kind of crisis in which the majority of men not only shift about according to circumstances, but also yield to the vagaries of fortune. The democracy was faced with failure; he was not being driven out of public life, nor did he nurse any private enmity against those who were about to be the rulers. And yet, although it was open to him to become one of the Thirty and to have as much power as any man, he chose rather to perish in working for your safety than to endure the sight of the demolition of the walls, the surrender of the ships to the enemy and the enslavement of your people. And, not long after that, Niceratus, who was my cousin and Nicias’s son, and a loyal supporter of your democracy, was arrested and put to death by the Thirty: neither his birth nor his means nor his age could be thought to disqualify him for a part in the government; but it was supposed that he was in such high credit with your democracy on his own account as well as on that of his ancestors that he could never be zealous for a different government. For they were conscious of the honor in which the whole family were held by the city, and how they had faced danger on your behalf in many places, and had made many large contributions to your funds, and had most nobly performed their public services; how they had never once evaded any of the other duties enjoined on them by the State, but had eagerly discharged them all. I ask you, whose misfortune can surpass ours, if under the oligarchy we are put to death for showing loyalty to the people, and under the democracy we are stripped of our property as being disloyal to the people? Furthermore, gentlemen, Diognetus was so slandered by base informers that he went away into exile, and was one of the few of the banished who neither took the field against the city nor came to Decelea; nor has he been the author of any sort of injury to your people either in exile or after his return, but he carried principle to such a point that he was rather incensed with those who had offended against you than grateful to those who had been the authors of his recall. He held no office under the oligarchy: but, as soon as the Lacedaemonians and Pausanias arrived at the Academy, he took the son of Niceratus and us, who were children, and laying him on the knees of Pausanias, and setting us by his side, he told Pausanias and the others present the tale of our sufferings and the fate that had befallen us, and called on Pausanias to succor us in virtue of our bonds both of friendship and of hospitality, and to do vengeance upon those who had maltreated us. The result was that Pausanias began to be favorable to the people, holding up our calamities to the Lacedaemonians as an example of the villainy of the Thirty. For it had become evident to all the Peloponnesians who had come that they were putting to death, not the most villainous of the citizens, but those who were especially deserving of honor on account of their birth, their wealth and their general excellence. Such was the pity felt for us, and such an impression of our grievous sufferings was made on everyone, that Pausanias rejected the hospitable offerings of the Thirty, and accepted ours. Surely it will be strange, gentlemen of the jury, if after being pitied as children by the enemy who had come to succor the oligarchy we, who have proved ourselves the men we are, should be stripped of our property by you, gentlemen, whose fathers gave their lives for the democracy!