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Read about the evidence
Demosthenes (Dem. 57).
 
Plot on a Map
Athens.

(1) A law is proposed at Athens: that there be an investigation of everyone enrolled in the deme registers to see whether they are genuine citizens or not, that those who were not born of a citizen male and a citizen female be stricken off the rolls, and that the demesmen vote on all of them by ballot. Those who are voted down and abide by the demesmen’s vote are to be stricken off the rolls and become resident aliens. Those who desire an appeal are to be granted one before a jury; if they are convicted in court as well, they are to be sold into slavery, but if they are acquitted, they are to be regarded as citizens. (2) In accordance with this law, when the deme of the Halimousians voted by ballot, a certain Euxitheus was voted down, but he says that he has come to court because he has been a political victim of his enemy Eubulides. He also tries to prove that he was born of a citizen male and a citizen female, saying: “But if my mother worked as a wet-nurse, she did it because of poverty. And my father had a foreign accent because he had been taken as a prisoner of war and sold into slavery.”³⁶ One ought not to dredge up a list of misfortunes, but rather examine the family tree.

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— Notes —

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