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and a fact has to be discovered, you do not use the testimony of the freemen, but question the slaves, and thus endeavour to ascertain the real truth. And very properly. For there have been witnesses ere now, who were thought not to have spoken the truth; but no slave was ever convicted of giving false evidence upon examination by torture. Yet the defendant, after declining so fair an offer, after rejecting so sure and decisive a test, calling Aphobus and Timocrates, one to say he paid the portion, the other that he received it, will ask you to believe him, when he pretends that his business with these men was transacted without a witness. Such simpletons does he take you for. That their tale will be neither true nor like the truth-by their confessing not to have paid the portion at first-by their pretending to have paid it back without witnesses-by the dates, which make it impossible to have paid that money after the title to the property was in dispute by these and all the other circumstances of the case, I think I have clearly proved.

THE ORATION AGAINST ONETOR-II.

THE ARGUMENT.

DEMOSTHENES gives additional proof of his opponent's fraud, and replies to some parts of his defence.

ONE circumstance which I omitted in my former speech, and which is as strong as any that were urged, to prove the non-payment of the marriage portion by these men to Aphobus, I will lay before you; and then I will proceed to expose the falsehoods which you have heard from the defendant. You must know, men of the jury, when he first thought of putting in a claim to the property of Aphobus, he said he had paid, not a talent, (which he now says was the amount of the portion,) but eighty minas; and he set up

1 My version of this clause is very similar to that of Pabst-"theils aus den Zeitverhältnissen, welche offenbar die Annahme nicht gestatten, dass er, nachdem schon über das Familiengut Streit erhoben worden, das Geld werde ausgezahlt haben."

tablets,1 on the house for twenty minas, on the land for a talent; wishing to preserve to Aphobus both the one and the other. Seeing however by the issue of the late trial, with what feelings an unscrupulous rogue is regarded by a jury, he begins to reflect, and thought how hard my case would appear, if, after being so grossly plundered, Aphobus having all my estate, I had nothing of his to levy upon, and could show that I was hindered from levying by Onetor. What is it he does? He removes the tablets from the house, and says the portion is only a talent, and for that the land is mortgaged. Now it is evident that, if the tablets on the house were fairly set up and told a true story, those on the land were fair also. On the other hand, if the former were false and set up with a fraudulent intention, we may presume the latter were equally false. Upon this you should form your judgment, not from my statements, but from the defendant's own conduct. He took down the tablets of his own accord; no one compelled him; and thus by his own act he shows himself to be an impostor. I shall prove my words. Observe, he still maintains the land to be mortgaged for a talent; and that he claimed twenty minas also on the house by his tablets, and took them down again after the trial, I shall prove by witnesses who know the fact. Here, take the deposition,

[The Deposition.]

It is clear then, that having put up tablets on the house for twenty minas, and on the land for a talent, he intended to claim a charge upon them for eighty minas. Could you have stronger proof of the falsity of all he says, than his varying in his own account of the same transaction? To me it seems impossible to find a stronger proof.

Now mark his impudence. He dared to say in court, that he leaves me all the land is worth beyond a talent; when by his own valuation it is worth nothing more. What did you

mean, Onetor, by fixing your tablets to the house for the

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To denote that the property was mortgaged. Pabst calls them Verpfändungszeichen." Auger calls the putting up of the tablets "saisir la maison," or "faire saisie de la maison;" and to remove them "lever la saisie." The French word is equivalent to our seizure or distraint; and is not very appropriate to this proceeding of Onetor. See Appendix IV.

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twenty extra minas (when eighty minas was your demand), if the land was really worth more? Why did you not charge the land with the twenty minas also? or is this your plan?— when it pleases you to preserve the estate of Aphobus, the land shall be worth a talent only, and the house be mortgaged to you for two thousand drachms besides, and the portion shall be eighty minas, and you insist on having both house and land; again, when that is not for your advantage, it shall be otherwise-the house shall be worth a talent, because I have it in my possession, and what remains of the farm shall be worth not less than two talents, that I may appear to be ill-using Aphobus, and not to be the injured party? Do you see that, while you pretend to have paid the portion, you are proved not to have paid it in any manner whatsoever? Proved, I say; for conduct which is true and genuine is just as it was in the beginning: yours is shown to have been the contrary; you have acted with design, to aid the plots of my enemies.

From this you may see, and it is worth considering, what sort of an oath he would have sworn, if tendered to him. For, when he said the portion was eighty minas, if one had offered to give him that sum, upon his swearing to the truth of his own statements, what would he have done? It is plain, he would have taken the oath. On what ground can he deny that he would have sworn it, when he makes such a claim now? Well then; he proves out of his own mouth, that he would have been perjured; for now he tells you it was a talent, and not eighty minas, that he paid. What reason then have we to suppose, that he would be more forsworn in that case than in the present? And what opinion can one fairly entertain of a man, who convicts himself of perjury so easily??

But perhaps all his conduct is not of a piece, not evident trickery from beginning to end. How can this be, when you

1 Pabst "Denn Diess ist einfach der wahre und unverfälschte Hergang der Sache, wie sie vom Anfang an geschehen ist."

The application of this maxim is, that Onetor's conduct was genuine, when he refused to pay his sister's portion to Aphobus; his subsequent conduct, with respect to the pretended mortgage, &c., was a fraud concerted with Aphobus.

2 i. e. of being ready to commit perjury: as Pabst expresses it in his version-"der so leicht sich selbst überweiset, eines Meineides fähig zu seyn."

The point of this argument, such as it is, is derived from the Athenian

know that he spoke for Aphobus in reduction of damages, fixing them at a talent, and offering to be bail to me for that amount? Here again is proof, not only that Aphobus lived with his wife, and the defendant was on friendly terms with him, but also that the marriage portion never was paid. For what man would be such a fool as first to pay a large sum of money on the security of an estate with a doubtful title, and then, not content with his bad bargain, but as though the person who took him in had done a righteous act, to become his bail for a judgment debt? No man, I should think. It is not rational to suppose that a person, who was unable to recover a talent due to himself, should promise to pay that sum to another, and give bail for it too. No; the very act shows that he has never paid the portion, but took the mortgage as a friend of Aphobus, in return for my large property,' and hoping to make his sister a partner with him in my inheritance. And now he endeavours to cheat and deceive you, by saying, that he set up the tablets before judgment was given against Aphobus. Yes, Onetor; but not before you had given judgment against him; at least, if there is truth in your present story; for it is clear that, when you took these steps, you were in your own mind satisfied of his guilt. But indeed the argument is ridiculous; as if you, men of the jury, were not aware that all rogues consider what they shall say, and no one ever lost a cause for lack of words, or confessing himself to be in the wrong. His lies are first detected, and then the man's character becomes known. Such appears to me to be the defendant's case. Come tell me, Onetor, how can it be

practice of tendering what I have called the evidentiary oath, or wager of law. (See Vol. iii. Appendix ix. pp. 383-386.) The orator argues thus-Onetor at first claimed eighty minas: he now admits the falsehood of this claim, which ought to have been a talent only: but if I had offered to give him the eighty minas upon his swearing to the justice of the claim, it is clear he would have sworn to it: [Quære :] then he would have perjured himself: therefore he would perjure himself now: and therefore you cannot trust him, &c.

The argument, if good for anything, tends to show that a man's oath is no better than his bare word, and that a liar is always ready to commit perjury.

Onetor does a good turn to Aphobus in taking the fictitious mortgage. In return for this, his sister is married to a man so much the richer by the plunder of Demosthenes; and perhaps Onetor himself comes in for a share of this.

just, that, if you put up tablets for eighty minas, the portion shall be eighty minas; and if for more, more; and if for less, less? Or how can it be just, when your sister up to this day has never lived with another man, or been separated from Aphobus, and when you have not paid the portion, and have not chosen to resort to the torture or to any other fair mode of determining these questions, that, because you say you have set up tablets, the farm shall be yours? I cannot see the justice of this. We must look to the truth, not to the contrivances by which men like you patch up a plausible story. Besides, good heavens ! suppose it were ever so true that you had paid the portion (which you have not), who is to blame for that? yourselves; for you took my property as a security. Did not Aphobus take possession of my estate (for which judgment was given against him) ten whole years before he became your brother-in-law ? And was it right that you should recover everything, while I, who have obtained a judgment, an oppressed orphan, and the loser of a real portion, who alone of all mankind ought to have been exempted from the risk of costs,1 am thus reduced to distress, and have recovered nothing at all, though I have been ready to accede to any terms of your own proposing that were fair and reasonable?

THE ORATION AGAINST ZENOTHEMIS.

THE ARGUMENT.

DEMON, for whom Demosthenes composed the speech now before us, was his uncle by marriage, as the reader has already seen (ante, page 93). The action, in which he procured the orator's assistance, was brought against him under the following circumstances. He had entrusted a sum of money, which he held in partnership, to a corn-merchant, named Protus, who engaged to purchase corn in Sicily and bring it to Athens. The transaction between Demon and Protus was probably a loan of a similar character to what we read

The risk of having to pay a sixth of the damages, upon failure to get a fifth part of the votes. This was called erwßeλía, which is a word not translatable.

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