As to whether or not proclamation of some other outrage was made at the time of the murder, who knows? Nobody felt called upon to inquire and as the question is an open one, it is quite possible to suppose that the malefactors concerned in such an outrage committed the murder.

Why, moreover, should the evidence of the slave be thought more trustworthy than that of free men?Or of the free men. A puzzling sentence which has been treated by some as evidence of the incompleteness of this tetralogy in its present form. No free men have given evidence in favor of the defense, and we can hardly suppose that the speaker is referring to himself. I have taken the words in a purely general sense, although I feel it to be unsatisfactory. Free men are disfranchised and fined, should their evidence be considered false; whereas this slave, who gave us no opportunity of either cross-examining or torturing him—when can he be punished? Nay, when can he be cross-examined? He could make a statement in perfect safety; so it is only natural that he was induced to lie about me by his masters, who are enemies of mine. On the other hand, it would be nothing short of impious were I put to death by you on evidence which was untrustworthy.

According to the prosecution, it is harder to believe that I was absent from the scene of the crime than that I was present at it. But I myself, by using not arguments from probability but facts, will prove that I was not present. All the slaves in my possession, male or female, I hand over to you for torture; and if you find that I was not at home in bed that night, or that I left the house, I agree that I am the murderer. The night can be identified, as the murder was committed during the Diipoleia.A festival in honor of Zeus, celebrated in the first week of June.

As regards my wealth, my fears for which are said to have furnished a natural motive for the murder, the facts are precisely the opposite. It is the unfortunate who gain by arbitrary methods, as they expect changes to cause a change in their own sorry plight. It pays the fortunate to safeguard their prosperity by living peaceably, as change turns their good fortune into bad.

Again, although the prosecution pretend to base their proof of my guilt on inferences from probability, they assert not that I am the probable, but that I am the actual murderer. Moreover, those inferencesThe ἄλλα is answered by ὅ τε γὰρ, which explains away the one fact which might have been unfavorable to the defense. The connection of thought is; The inferences are all in my favor; and, after all, it is only inferences that we have to consider in this case. There can be no question of evidence of fact, as the one possible witness has been proved prejudiced. The construction is thus elliptical. have in fact been proved to be in my favor rather than theirs—for not only has the witness for the prosecution been proved untrustworthy, but he cannot be cross-examined. Similarly, I have shown that the presumptionsτεκμήρια are here distinguished from εἰκότα; but the distinction is hardly observed by Antiphon in practice. are in my favor and not in favor of the prosecution and the trail of guilt has been proved to lead not to me, but to those whom the prosecution are treating as innocent. Thus the charges made against me have been shown without exception to be unfounded. But it does not follow that there is no way of convicting criminals, if I am acquitted; it does follow that there is no way of effectively defending persons accused, if I am sentenced.