Unknown Pleader Against Phaenippus, On an Exchange of Properties (29-30)

Because, my good Sir, it is merely this that you are contriving, that you may now have private debts equal in amount to the public debt which I have incurred to the state. But that your statement is false, Phaenippus, and that you have come before these gentlemen as a perjured man, I shall straightway prove beyond all question.

Please, clerk, take the deposition of Aeantides and Theoteles to whom this fellow has declared that he owes four thousand drachmae. His declaration is false, and he long ago paid the debt, not willingly, but after a judgement had been secured against him. Read.

The Deposition

Well, then, men of the jury, when a man has made out a declaration that is so manifestly false in all points and has shown no regard for the laws which define the time within which the declaration must be made out, or to the private agreements which we hold to be equally binding; when besides this he has opened the seals of the buildings and carried off the grain and wine from within, and furthermore has after the offer to exchange sold the cut timber to the value of more than thirty minae; and when (worst of all) he has concocted false debts for the purpose of the exchange—will you decide by your votes that this man has made a just declaration? Surely not, men of the jury.