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Rh citizens as they were taking the evening air or returning home from parties. One Conon and his sons specially distinguished themselves. Their victim on one occasion retained Demosthenes for his counsel. They had all been on foreign military service together, and it was then that the practical jokes and annoyances were begun of which Demosthenes' client complains. Conon and his set would drink all day after lunch; and so by dinner-time they were only fit for drunken frolics. "At first," the plaintiff says, "they played tricks on his servants; at last on himself and his party. They would pretend that our servants annoyed them with smoke in cooking, and were saucy; then they beat them, and played all sorts of dirty, brutal jokes on them. We expressed our disgust; and when they insulted us, we all went in a body to the general, who gave them a severe reprimand." In this manner a very sore feeling grew up; and when they all returned to Athens, the assault took place which was the ground of the action.

"When I had got back to Athens," the plaintiff says, "I was taking a walk one evening in the market-place with a friend of my own age, when Ctesias, Conon's son, passed us, very much intoxicated. Seeing us, he made an exclamation like a drunken man muttering something indistinctly to himself, and went on his way. There was a drinking-party near, at the house of Pamphilus, the fuller. Conon and many others were there. Ctesias got them to leave the party and go with him