The Son of Teisias Against Callicles, Regarding Damage to a Piece of Property (16-20)

It is worth your while, men of the jury, to hear some remarks also about the other statements made by Callicles. And first, consider whether any one of you has ever seen or heard of a watercourse existing by the side of a road. I think that in the whole country there is not a single one. For what could induce any man to make a channel through his private lands for water which would otherwise have gone rushing down a public road?

And what one of you, whether in the country or the city would allow water passing along the highway to flow into his farm or his house? On the contrary, when it forces its way in, is it not our habit to dam or wall it off? But the plaintiff demands of me that I let the water from the road flow into my land, and, when it has passed beyond his, turn it back again into the road. Well then, the neighbor who farms the land next to his will make complaint; for it is plain that they too will have the same right to protest that the plaintiff has.

But surely, if I am afraid to divert the water into the road, I should be a rash man indeed, if I were to turn it into land. For when I am being sued for penalty because the water flowing from the road spread over the plaintiff’s land, what treatment in heaven’s name must I expect to meet at the hands of those who suffer damage from the water overflowing from my own land? But if, once I have got the water on my property, I am not to be allowed to drain it off either into the road or onto private land, men of the jury, what course in the name of the gods remains for me? I take it, Callicles will not force me to drink it all up!

Well then, after suffering these annoyances at their hands and many other grievous ones as well, I must be content, not indeed to win my suit, but to escape paying a further penalty! If, men of the jury, there had been a watercourse below me to receive the water, I should perhaps have been wrong in not letting it in on my land, just as on certain other farms there are recognized watercourses in which the first landowners let the water flow (as they do the gutter-drains from the houses), and others again receive it from them in like manner. But on the land in question no one gives the water over to me or receives it from me. How, then, can it be a watercourse?

An overflow of water has ere now, I imagine, often done damage to many who have not guarded against it, just as it has in this case to the plaintiff. But this is the thing that is most outrageous of all, that Callicles, when the water overflows on his land, brings up huge stones and walls it off, but has brought suit for damages against me on the ground that my father was guilty of wrongdoing, because when the same thing happened to his land, he built an enclosing wall. And yet, if all those who have suffered loss because water has flooded their lands in this region are to bring suit against me, my fortune, even if multiplied many times, would not meet the costs.