Against Onetor, An Ejectment Suit I (26-30)

When I saw, men of the jury, that after the woman’s divorce had been registered with the archon, and after the defendant’s declaration that he had taken a mortgage on the farm to secure her marriage-portion, Aphobus continued to hold and till the land just as before, and to dwell with his wife, I knew well that all this was fiction and a pretence to cover up the facts.

And wishing to make this clear to you all, I deemed it right to convict him in the presence of witnesses, in case he should deny that matters are as I have stated; and I offered to him for torture a slave who knew well all the facts—one whom I had taken from among those of Aphobus, since he had not paid the damages within the time fixed by law. When I made this demand, Onetor declined to put the slave to torture as to the question of his sister’s living with Aphobus; and, as to Aphobus’s tilling the land, the fact was too plain to be denied, so he confessed it.

Nor are these the only proofs which make it easy to see that Aphobus continued to live with his wife and to possess the land up to the time when the suit was begun; it is plain also from the way in which he dealt with the land after judgement was given against him. For, as though the property had not been mortgaged, but was to belong to me according to the court’s decision, he made off with everything that could be carried away—the produce, and all the farm implements, except the storage-tanks.[*] What he could not take away he necessarily left behind, so that Onetor was now at liberty to lay claim merely to the bare land.

It is an outrage, though, that one of them should say that the land was mortgaged to him, while the mortgagor is to be seen cultivating it; that he should claim that his sister has left her husband, when he is shown to have refused to accept the test by torture regarding this very point; and that the one who is not living with his wife (as Onetor claims) should carry off all the produce and implements from the farm, while the man acting as guardian for the divorced woman, to secure whose portion he claims to have taken a mortgage on the land, plainly shows no anger at a single one of these acts, but takes everything quietly.

Is the whole thing not absolutely clear? Is it not confessedly a scheme to protect Aphobus? One certainly would so declare, if he duly considered each one of the facts.

Now, to prove that the defendant acknowledged that Aphobus farmed the land up to the time of the commencement of my action against him; that he refused the inquiry by torture as to his sister’s continuing to live with Aphobus; and that the farm was stripped after the court’s decision of everything save what was attached to the soil; take these depositions, and read them.

The Depositions