Trapeziticus (11-15)

After this, men of the jury, messengers arrived with the news that my father had been released and that Satyrus was so repentant of all that had occurred that he had bestowed upon my father pledges of his confidence of the most sweeping kind, and had given him authority even greater than he formerly possessed and had chosen my sister as his son’s wife. When Pasion learned this and understood that I would now bring action openly about my property, he spirited away his slave Cittus, who had knowledge of our financial transactions.

And when I went to him and demanded the surrender of Cittus, because I believed that this slave could furnish the clearest proof of my claim, Pasion made the most outrageous charge, that I and Menexenus had bribed and corrupted Cittus as he sat at his banking-table and received six talents of silver from him. And that there might be neither examination nor testimony under torture on these matters, he asserted that it was we who had spirited away the slave and had brought a counter-charge against himself with a demand that this slave, whom we ourselves had spirited away, be produced. And while he was making this plea and protesting and weeping, he dragged me before the Polemarch[*] with a demand for bondsmen, and he did not release me until I had furnished bondsmen in the sum of six talents. Please summon for me witnesses to these facts.

Witnesses

You have heard the witnesses, men of the jury; and I, who had already lost part of my money and with regard to the rest was under the most infamous charges, left Athens for the Peloponnesus to investigate for myself. But Menexenus found the slave here in the city, and having seized him demanded that he give testimony under torture[*] about both the deposit and the charge brought by his master.

Pasion, however, reached such a pitch of audacity that he secured the release of the slave on the ground that he was a freeman and, utterly devoid of shame and of fear, he claimed as a freeman and prevented the torture of a person who, as he alleged, had been stolen from him by us and had given us all that money. But the crowning impudence of all was this—that when Menexenus compelled Pasion to give security for the slave before the Polemarch, he gave bond for him in the sum of seven talents. Let witnesses to these facts take the stand.

Witnesses

After he had acted in this way, men of the jury, Pasion, believing that his past conduct had clearly been in error and thinking he could rectify the situation by his subsequent acts, came to us and asserted that he was ready to surrender the slave for torture. We chose questioners and met in the temple of Hephaestus.[*] And I demanded that they flog and rack the slave, who had been surrendered, until they were of opinion that he was telling the truth. But Pasion here asserted that they had not been chosen as torturers, and bade them make oral interrogation of the slave if they wished any information.