Unknown Pleader Against Evergus and Mnesibulus, About False Testimony (16-20)

Well, then, since the woman was not present with you at that time and the boxes had previously been sealed, did you at any time afterward bring her into the market-place or before the court? For if she was not present with you at that time, you surely ought to have delivered her up afterwards, and to have called witnesses to prove that you were willing to have the test made by the woman’s evidence in accordance with the challenge which you had tendered, as your challenge had been put in the box, and a deposition stating that you were ready to deliver her up. Well then, when you were on the point of entering upon the trial, did you ever bring the woman before the court?

And yet, if what they say about his tendering the challenge is true, he ought, when the court-rooms were being assigned by lot, to have brought the woman, got a herald to attend, and bidden me, if I chose, to put her to the torture, and have made the jurors as they came in witnesses to the fact that he was ready to deliver her up. But as it is, he has made deceitful statements and has produced false witnesses, but even to this day he does not dare to deliver up the woman, though I have made repeated challenges and demands, as the witnesses who were present have testified before you.

(To the clerk. Please read the depositions again.

The Depositions

I wish now, men of the jury, to explain to you the origin of my action against Theophemus, in order that you may be assured that he not only secured my condemnation unjustly by deceiving the jury, but also at the same time secured by the same verdict the condemnation of the senate of five hundred, and made of no effect the decisions of your courts and of no effect your decrees and your laws, and shook your faith in your magistrates and in the inscriptions on the public stelae.[*] How he has done this I will show you point by point.

I never before at any time in my life had any business transaction with Theophemus, nor yet any revel or love-affair or drinking-bout, to lead me to go to his house, because of a quarrel with him about some matter in which he had got the better of me, or under the excitement of amorous passion. No, but in obedience to decrees passed by your assembly and senate and at the bidding of the law I demanded of him the ship’s equipment which he owed to the state. For what reason, I shall proceed to tell you.

It chanced that some triremes were about to sail, a military force having to be despatched in haste. Now there was not in the dockyards equipment for the ships, but those from whom it was due, who had in their possession such equipment, had failed to return it; and furthermore there was not available for purchase in the Peiraeus either an adequate supply of sail-cloth and tow and cordage, which serve for the equipment of a trireme. Chaeridemus, therefore, proposed this decree, in order that the equipment for the ships might be recovered and kept safe for the state.

(To the clerk. Read the decree, please.

The Decree