Oration XVI
Mantitheus
1. If I did not know, members of the Boule, that my accusers wished to injure me in every way, I should have felt grateful to them for bringing this charge. For I think to men slandered unjustly these charges are of great benefit, as they compel them to exhibit their mode of life. 2. I feel so sure of myself that I hope, if any one here entertains feelings of dislike toward me, he will, having heard what I have to say of the facts, think better of it and be in all after-time a good friend to me. 3. I make no claim, members of the Boule, to do anything more than show you that I am well disposed to the existing constitution and that I shared the same dangers that you did. If I make plain to you that I have lived well, contrary to common report and the assertions of my enemies, I want you to pass me and count them bad. First, I will show that I did not serve in the cavalry, that I was not in Athens at the time of the Thirty, and that I took no part in the government of that time.
4. My father sent me before the disaster on the Hellespont, to live at the court of Salyrus, king of Bosphorus, and I was not at home, either while the walls were being taken down, or the constitution was undergoing change, but returned five days before the party of Phyle occupied the Piraeus. 5. It is not likely that, arriving at such a time, I was desirous of sharing other people’s dangers, and they evidently did not have any idea of sharing the management of the government with those who were away from home and not guilty of disloyalty, but rather disenfranchised even those who helped them to abolish the democracy. 6. And in the next place it is foolish to estimate the cavalry from the register. For there are many persons on this list who admit that they did mot serve in the cavalry, and some are written there who were away from home. Here is the strongest proof. For when you returned you voted that the phylarchs should give in a return of those serving in the cavalry that you might recover the allowances. 7. No one can show that my name was handed in by phylarchs, nor given to the revenue commissioners as having received an allowance. So it is plain to all that it was necessary for the phylarchs, if they did not give in the names of those having received the allowance, to be losers themselves. So you ought to put much more trust in the returns of these men than you do in the register. 8. Yet, members of the Boule, if I had served in the cavalry, I should not have denied it as if I had been guilty of a terrible crime, but should claim, if I proved I had done no one of the citizens any wrong, that I ought to be passed. I see that, following this plan, many who served in the cavalry at that time are in the Boule, and many have been appointed generals, and many commanders of cavalry. Believe, then, that I make this defense for no other reason than that they have dared lie about me before the whole world. Come and give evidence.