Ariston Against Conon, an Action for Assault (6-10)

When matters had gone thus far, it was natural that after our return home there should exist between us feelings of anger and hatred. However, on my own part I swear by the gods I never saw fit to bring an action against them, or to pay any attention to what had happened. I simply made this resolve—in future to be on my guard, and to take care to have nothing to do with people of that sort.

I wish in the first place to bring before you depositions proving these statements, and then to show what I have suffered at the hands of the defendant himself, in order that you may see that Conon, who should have dealt rigorously with the first offences, has himself added to these far more outrageous acts of his own doing.

The Depositions

These, then, are the acts of which I thought proper to take no account. Not long after this, however, one evening, when I was taking a walk, as my custom was, in the agora with Phanostratus of Cephisia,[*] a man of my own age,[*] Ctesias, the son of the defendant, passed by me in a drunken state opposite the Leocorion,[*] near the house of Pythodorus. At sight of us he uttered a yell, and, saying something to himself, as a drunken man does, in an unintelligible fashion, passed on up, toward Melitê.[*] Gathered together there for a drinking bout, as we afterwards learned, at the house of Pamphilus the fuller, were the defendant Conon, a certain Theotimus, Archeblades, Spintharus, son of Eubulus, Theogenes, son of Andromenes, and a number of others. Ctesias made them all get up, and proceeded to the agora.

It happened that we were turning back from the temple of Persephonê,[*] and on our walk were again about opposite the Leocorion when we met them. When we got close to them one of them, I don’t know which, fell upon Phanostratus and pinned him, while the defendant Conon together with his son and the son of Andromenes threw themselves upon me. They first stripped me of my cloak, and then, tripping me up they thrust me into the mud and leapt upon me and beat me with such violence that my lip was split open and my eyes closed; and they left me in such a state that I could neither get up nor utter a sound. As I lay there I heard them utter much outrageous language,

a great deal of which was such foul abuse that I should shrink from repeating some of it in your presence. One thing, however, which is an indication of the fellow’s insolence and a proof that the whole affair has been of his doing, I will tell you. He began to crow, mimicking fighting cocks that have won a battle and his fellows bade him flap his elbows against his sides like wings. After this some people who happened to pass took me home stripped as I was, for these men had gone off taking my cloak with them. When my bearers got to my door, my mother and the women servants began shrieking and wailing, and it was with difficulty that I was at length carried to a bath. There I was thoroughly bathed, and shown to the surgeons.

To prove that these statements of mine are true, I shall call before you the witnesses who attest them.

The Witnesses

It happened, men of the jury, that Euxitheus of Cholleidae,[*] who is here in court and is a relative of mine, and with him Meidias, on their way back from a dinner somewhere, came up to me, when I was now near my home, followed after me as I was borne to the bath, and were present when men brought the surgeon. I was so weak, that, as it was far for me to be carried from the bath to my home, those who were with me decided to carry me to the house of Meidias for that night; and so they did.

Now let the clerk take the depositions establishing these facts, that you may understand that a host of people know what outrage I suffered at the hands of these men.

The Depositions

(To the clerk.) Take now the deposition of the surgeon also.

The Deposition