Apollodorus Against Stephanus, Charged with False Testimony I (16-20)

for instance, a man may not be put to torture in your presence—for this it is necessary that there be a challenge; again, if anything has been transacted and has taken place somewhere out of the country, it is necessary that for this too there should be a challenge to go by sea or land to the place where the thing was done; and so for other things of that sort. But in cases where it is possible to produce the things themselves before your eyes, what could be simpler than to produce them publicly?

Well, my father died at Athens, the arbitration took place in the Painted Stoa,[*] and these men have deposed that Amphias produced the document before the arbitrator. Then, if it was genuine, the document ought to have been put into the box,[*] and the one producing it should have so testified, in order that the jurymen might have reached a decision in accordance with the truth and after an inspection of the seals; and I, on my part, if anyone was wronging me, might have proceeded against him.

But, as it is, no one person has taken the whole matter upon himself or given straightforward testimony, as one would do in testifying to the truth, but each has deposed to a part of the story, fancying that he is very clever and that for this reason he will escape punishment,—one of them deposing that he holds a document on which is written the will of Pasio; another that, being sent by the former person, he produced this document, but had no knowledge as to whether it was genuine or spurious.

These men, who are here in court, using the challenge as a screen, deposed to a will in such a way that the jurymen believed this will to be my father’s, and I was debarred from obtaining a hearing regarding my wrongs, but in such a way also that they on their part would most clearly be convicted of having given false testimony. And yet this was the very opposite of what they intended.

However, that you may know that I am speaking the truth in this, (to the clerk) take the deposition of Cephisophon.

The Deposition

Cephisophon, son of Cephalion, of Aphidna,[*] deposes that a document was left him by his father, on which was inscribed the will of Pasio.

It was a simple thing, men of the jury, for the one who gave this testimony to add and this is the document which the deponent exhibits, and to put the document into the box. But, I presume, he thought that this falsehood would deserve your indignation, and that you would punish him for it, whereas to testify that a document had been bequeathed to him was a trifling matter and one of no consequence. And yet it is this very thing that makes the whole matter clear, and proves that they have concocted it.