Unknown Pleader Against Evergus and Mnesibulus, About False Testimony (11-15)

That, despite my frequent challenges and demands for the delivery of the woman for examination, no one has ever delivered her up, has been shown to you by witnesses. But in order that you may know from circumstantial proofs also that they have given false testimony, I will prove it. For if what they state were true, namely, that Theophemus tendered the challenge and offered to give up the woman in person, these men, I take it, would not have produced two witnesses only, a brother and a brother-in-law, to testify to what was true, but many others as well.

For the arbitration took place in the Heliaea,[*] where those serving as arbitrators for the Oeneïd and Erectheïd tribes hold their sessions; and when challenges of this sort are given, and a party brings his slave in person, and delivers him up for examination by the torture, hosts of people stand forth to hear what is said; so that they would not have been at a loss for witnesses, if there had been the least truth in the deposition.

They have testified, then, in the same deposition, men of the jury, that I was unwilling to have a postponement, but that Theophemus urged it in order that he might produce the woman. That this is not true, I will show you. For if I had tendered to Theophemus this challenge to which they have deposed, requiring him to deliver up the woman,

he might fittingly have answered by urging that the arbitration be put off until the next meeting, in order that he might bring the woman and deliver her up to me; but as it is, Theophemus, they have deposed that it was you who desired to deliver up the woman and that I was not willing to receive her. How is it that you, who were the woman’s master, when you were on the point of tendering me this challenge, to which your witnesses have deposed, when you were forced to take refuge in this woman’s testimony to establish your case,

and when you had no other witness to my having assaulted you and having delivered the first blow—how is it, I ask, that you did not bring the woman with you to the arbitrator and deliver her up, having her then present in person, and being yourself her master? Nay, you state that you tendered the challenge; but no one saw the woman by means of whom you deceived the jurors, through producing false witnesses to represent that you wished to give her up.