An Unknown Pleader Against Spudias in the Matter of a Marriage Proposal (21-25)

These papers were left by the wife of Polyeuctus, as I just now said. The seals being acknowledged both by the defendant’s wife and by mine, we both, being present, broke them and took copies, and then sealed up the papers again, and deposited them in the hands of Aristogenes.

Now, note this, men of the jury, note this, I beg of you. There was in the papers mention of the two minae, the price of the slave—and it was not only Polyeuctus on his death-bed who had made this claim—and there was mention of the eighteen hundred drachmae. When he read this, if what was written did not concern him at all and was untrue, why pray did he not at once protest about it? Why did he join in sealing again papers which were false and of no worth? This of course no one in the world would do, if he did not concur in all that was written.

But surely, men of the jury, this is an outrageous thing if these men are to be permitted now to dispute matters to which they have themselves given assent, and you are to find no basis for judgement in the fact that all of us are wont, when charges are made against us that are unjust and untrue, not to keep silent, but to dispute them on the spot, and that those who do not do this, if they contest them subsequently, are accounted rascals and tricksters.

Now Spudias knows this as well as I, and I think even better, inasmuch as he comes oftener before your court, yet he feels no shame in saying things that contradict all that he has himself done. And yet full often when you become conscious of one single piece of fraud, you treat it as evidence against the other charges; but the defendant is found to have been convicted by himself of falsehood on every point.

Take, please, the deposition, proving that the seals of the papers were acknowledged at the time by the wife of the defendant, and that the papers are now deposited, sealed by Spudias.

The Deposition

Since, then, these facts have been so convincingly established, there is no further need, I think, of more words. For when I am able to produce both laws and witnesses in support of everything that I have said, and also admissions made in my favor by my opponent himself, what further need can there be for a long argument? However, if Spudias perchance waxes indignant about the marriage portion and maintains that he is being defrauded to the amount of one thousand drachmae, he will be lying. For, while he disputes my claim to this sum, he has received not less, but more, as will presently be made clear to you.