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For Euphiletos. [Or. XII.]

For Euphiletos. [Or. XII.]—This speech—or rather fragment1—is the only extant specimen of its author's work which is not concerned with the law of inheritance. It belongs to a case of Appeal (ἔφεσις) from the decision of demesmen to an ordinary heliastic jury2.

Every Attic deme from time to time revised the

Revision of deme-registers.
register of its members (ληξιαρχικὸν γραμματεῖον）3. At such revision, the name of each member was subjected to a separate scrutiny (διαψήφισις). If the voting decided that he was to be struck off the register (ἀποψηφίζεσθαι）—in other words, that he was not a true-born citizen—he had an appeal to a law-court,—at peril, however, of being sold as a slave and having his goods confiscated if the decision on the appeal went against him.

Euphiletos, son of Hegesippos (§ 12) by a second wife, had been struck off the register of the deme of Erchia on the ground that he was illegitimate. He then brought an action against the deme, represented by its demarch or president, and the issue was referred to one of the Public Arbitrators. The case was pending for two years; and during that time nothing was proved against the legitimacy of Euphiletos. A second Arbitration—in which the deme was represented by a new president—had the same result4. Redress being still refused, Euphiletos has now appealed to an ordinary court. The speaker is the son of Hegesippos by his first wife, and is therefore half-brother of Euphiletos, who was thirteen years his junior (§ 11). The extant part of the speech opens after the facts have been stated and the witnesses called. Dionysios seems to connect this cause

Date.
with a general revision of deme-lists throughout Attica5. The only such general revision of which we know belongs to the year of Archias, Ol. 108. 3, 346 B.C. On this view, the speech would fall in 343,—ten years later than any other work of Isaeos known to us. Probably, however, the revision meant in the speech was not general, but merely local and ordinary. In that case, we have no clue to the date.

All the kinsmen of Euphiletos have now borne witness

Analysis.
to his legitimacy,—his father—his brother, the speaker— the husbands of the speaker's sisters—his uncle: friends, too, have testified: and all these are trustworthy (§§ 1—6). How could any member of the deme prove his legitimacy better? (§§ 7—8). Further, the mother of Euphiletos has offered to take an oath; and his father and the speaker are ready to do the same (§§ 9—10). The arbitrators to whom the case was formerly referred gave it for Euphiletos (§ 11). As a different decision would have told against him, so ought their actual decision to be taken as evidence that his name has been removed from the register by a conspiracy6 (§ 12).

1 Preserved by Dionysios de Isaeo, c. 17. As the most recent editors of Isaeos—Baiter and Sauppe in their Oratores Attici, and Scheibe in the Teubner series —print this large extract as Oration XII., instead of placing it among the fragments, it seemed best, for convenience of reference, to follow that example.

2 Schömann (p. 479) understands the appeal to be made by the demesmen from the decisions of the Arbitrators; but here I should agree rather with the author of the Greek Argument and with Dionys. de Isaeo, c. 14, by the latter of whom this speech is described as ἡ ὑπὲρ Εὐφιλήτου πρὸς τὸν Ἐρχιέων δῆμον ἔφεσις.

3 The earliest recorded instance of such a revision belongs to 445 B.C. (Plut. Pericl. c. 37). Schömann (p. 478), on the other hand, would date the practice from a law of Demophilos passed in 419 B.C., therein following Harpokration s.v. διαψήφισις, whose notice, however, refers, not to 419, but to 346 B C.

4 That there were two distinct Arbitrations is clear: see § 11, τῆς προτέρας διαίτης—κατεδιῄτησαν ἀμφότεροι. But two questions occur: 1. How could an issue once tried by arbitration be submitted to a second arbitration? Schömann's explanation seems probable—In the former arbitration, Euphiletos was acquitted in the absence, perhaps through illness, of his adversary, who died soon afterwards (§ 11); and the new demarch, on the ground that judgment had gone by default, applied for a second hearing (ἀντίληξις τῆς μὴ οὔσης）—which could be done within ten days after the first decision: Pollux VIII. 60—2. Public arbitrators held office for one year only. How then shall we explain δύο ἔτη τοῦ διαιτητοῦ τὴν δίαιταν ἔχοντος, § 11? To read τῶν διαιτητῶν...ἐχόντων would be a rough remedy. Schömann suggests that, as the cause could not be decided within the year, the arbitrator was specially reappointed for a second year (p. 481).

5 De Isae. c. 16: but in ἐγράφη νόμος he may be referring only to the original institution of the rule.

6 § 12. ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν τῷ δήμῳ συστάντων. This is well illustrated by the Demosthenic speech (Or. LVII.) in a similar cause—that Against Eubulides (345 B.C.?) who is accused by Euxitheos of having intrigued to remove his name from the register of the deme— Cf. Schäfer, Dem. u. s. Z. III. App. 262 f.

The Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos. Sir Richard C. Jebb. London. Macmillan. 1876.

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