Nicobulus Against Pantaenetus (36-40)

Yes, says he, but if one commit other wrongs concerning mines, for these, too, actions may be brought. Certainly, Pantaenetus; but what are these? If one smokes out another, if one makes an armed attack, if one makes cuttings which encroach upon another’s workings. These are the other cases; but I, of course, have done nothing of this sort to you, unless you hold that people who seek to recover what they had risked in a loan to you are making an armed attack. If you hold that view, you have mining suits against all those who risk their own money.

But there is no justice in that. For consider—if a man purchases a mine from the state, shall he disregard the general laws in accordance with which all men are bound to render and obtain justice, and bring suit in a mining court, if he borrows from another?—if he be evil spoken of?—if he be beaten?—if he charge one with theft?—if he fail to recover money advanced for another’s tax?—if, in short, he has any other ground for action?

I think not. Mining suits, in my judgement, are to be brought against those sharing in the business of mining and those who have bored through into another’s property, and, in short, against those engaged in mining who do any of the things mentioned in the law. But a man who has lent money to Pantaenetus, and by persistently sticking to him has with difficulty got it back, is not also to be made defendant in a mining suit; I should say not!

That I have, therefore, done no wrong to the defendant and that the suit is not admissible under the laws one may easily determine from a consideration of these points. So, as he had not a single valid argument to advance in support of his charges, but had even incorporated false statements in his complaint, and was bringing suit regarding claims for which he had given a release, last month, men of Athens, when I was on the point of entering the court, and the court-rooms had already been allotted to the jurymen, he came up to me and surrounded me with his minions (that gang of his fellow-conspirators), and did a most outrageous thing.

He read me a long challenge, demanding that a slave who, he claimed, was acquainted with the facts, should be put to the torture; and that, if the facts as alleged by him were true, I should have to pay him the damages charged without adjustment by the jury; but if they were false, Mnesicles, the torturer, should determine the value of the slave. When he had received sureties to this agreement from me and I had sealed the challenge (not that I thought it fair;