Apollodorus Against Timotheus in the Matter of a Debt (54-57)

But, men of the jury, the copper was not given as security, nor did the Boeotian admiral borrow the thousand drachmae from my father, but this man Timotheus borrowed them, being in great distress; and the urgent need, to meet which he used the money, I have told you. But instead of evincing gratitude for the confidence shown him and the loan which he received from my father, he thinks it proper to defraud us, if he can, even of the principal.

Now, as to the bowls and the mina of silver, which he borrowed from my father when he sent his bodyservant Aeschrion to my father in the night, I asked him before the arbitrator if Aeschrion was still a slave, and demanded that he be put to the test in his hide.[*] He answered that Aeschrion was free, so I desisted from my demand; but I required him to put in a deposition made by Aeschrion as being a free man.

He, however, neither provided a deposition from Aeschrion, as being free, nor would he deliver him up as a slave that proof might be had from his body; for he was afraid that, if he produced a deposition from him as being free, I should bring suit for false testimony, and after proving that Aeschrion had testified falsely, should proceed against Timotheus himself for subornation, as the law provides; and if, again, he should deliver him up for the torture, he was afraid that Aeschrion would state the truth against him.

And yet it was a fine opportunity for him, if he was unable to produce witnesses concerning the other receipts of money, to prove this at any rate by the words of Aeschrion—that the bowls and the mina of silver were not received, and that Aeschrion was not sent by him to my father; and then to use this as evidence to you that I am uttering falsehoods in regard to my other claims upon him, seeing that his slave, whom I declare to have received the bowls and the mina of silver, was proved by the torture not to have received them.