Apollodorus Against Stephanus, Charged with False Testimony I (21-25)

For if the inscription on the will had been the property of Pasio and Phormio or in the matter of Phormio, or something of that sort, he would naturally have kept it for him; but if, as he has testified, the inscription was the will of Pasio, I should certainly have appropriated it, knowing that I was about to go to law, and knowing further that, if its contents were as represented, it was prejudicial to my interests; for I was the heir, and if the will was my father’s, it belonged to me, as did also all the rest of my father’s estate.

Well then, by its having been produced to Phormio, by its having been inscribed the will of Pasio, and yet ignored by me, it is proved that the will is a forgery and that the testimony of Cephisophon is false. But no more of Cephisophon; it is not with him that I have to do at present, and he has given no testimony as to the contents of the will.

And yet, men of Athens, I would have you consider how strong a proof this also is that these men have given false testimony. For when the witness who stated that he had the document in his own possession did not dare to say that the one produced by Phormio was a copy of the one in his own keeping; and when these men cannot state that they were present in the first instance or that they saw the document opened before the arbitrator, but have themselves actually deposed that I refused to open it, to have testified now that the one is a copy of the other, is not this to have accused themselves of falsifying?

More than all this, men of Athens, any man by examining the wording of the deposition can see that it is nothing but a contrivance of theirs to the end that rightly or wrongly it may appear that my father made this will.

(To the clerk.) But take the deposition itself, and read, stopping wherever I bid you, that from its own wording I may prove my point.

The Deposition

⋯ depose that they were present before the arbitrator Teisias, when Phormio challenged Apollodorus, if he declared that the document was not a copy of the will of Pasio ⋯

Stop reading. Bear in mind that the words are of the will of Pasio. Now persons who wished to bear witness to the truth—assuming that it is absolutely established that the challenge was tendered, which it was not—ought to have given their testimony in the following way.

(To the clerk.) Read the deposition again from the beginning.

The Deposition

⋯ depose that they were present before the arbitrator Teisias ⋯

We do depose; for we were present. Read on.

⋯ when Phormio challenged Apollodorus ⋯

This, too, they might properly have stated, assuming that he really tendered the challenge.

⋯ if he declared that the document was not a copy of the will of Pasio ⋯