On The Estate of Ciron (20-24)

Yet do not for a moment suppose, that, if our mother had been such as our opponents allege, our father would have either given a wedding-feast or provided a marriage-banquet and not rather hushed up the whole matter; or that the wives of the other demesmen would have chosen her to celebrate the festival with the wife of Diocles and given the sacred objects into her hands and not rather entrusted this office to some other woman; or that the wardsmen would have admitted us and not rather objected and justified their objection, if it had not been universally admitted that our mother was a legitimate daughter of Ciron. As it was, owing to the notoriety of the fact and its recognition by so many persons, no such question was raised from any quarter. Now call the witnesses to prove the truth of these statements.

Witnesses

Furthermore, gentlemen, the conduct of Diocles on the occasion of our grandfather's death clearly shows that we were acknowledged as the grandchildren of Ciron. I presented myself, accompanied by one of my relatives, a cousin of my father, to convey away the body with the intention of conducting the funeral from my own house. I did not find Diocles in the house, and I entered and was prepared to remove the body, having bearers with me for this purpose.

When, however, my grandfather's widow requested that the funeral should take place from that house, and declared that she would like herself to help us to lay out and deck the corpse, and entreated me and wept, I acceded to her request and went to my opponent and told him in the presence of witnesses that I would conduct the funeral from the house of the deceased, since Diocles' sister had begged me to do so.

Diocles, on hearing this, made no objection, but asserting that he had actually bought some of the requisites for the funeral and had himself paid a deposit for the rest, demanded that I should pay him for these, and arranged to recover from me the cost of the objects which he had purchased and to produce those who had received the deposit for the objects for which he alleged that he had paid a deposit. Immediately afterwards he casually remarked that Ciron had left nothing at all, although I had not said a single word about his money.

Yet had I not been Ciron's grandson, he would never have made these arrangements with me, but would rather have said, “Who are you? What right have you to carry out the burial? I do not know you: you shall not set foot in the house.” This is what he ought to have said, and what he has now instigated others to say. As it was, he said nothing of the kind, but only told me to bring the money next morning. And to prove the truth of these statements, please summon the witnesses.