[71]
Is it right, when the laws demand that the orator or
general who expects to get the people's confidence shall observe the laws in
begetting children, shall own land within our boundaries, shall give all the
lawful pledges and only thus lay claim to be the people's leader, that you
should have sold the land inherited from your father or be claiming as yours
children which are not your own, thus breaking the laws which govern oaths in
court,1 and be ordering others to
fight when you deserted the citizens' ranks yourself?
1 A reference to the oath whereby a man called down imprecations on his children, swearing that he was not guilty of a certain action. Demosthenes had lost his only child, a daughter, in 336 （Aeschin. 3.77）; and if he had other children now, they were adopted or by a hetaera. Cf. Athen. 13.592 e.
Dinarchus. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes, 2, with an English translation by J. O. Burtt, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.
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