I would have you understand to begin with that it requires not mere assertion, but proof, to show that someone has killed someone else. Now our accuser agrees with us as to how the accident happened, but disagrees as to the person responsible; yet it is only from what happened that that person can be determined.

He complains bitterly, because, according to him, it is a slur upon his son’s memory that he should have been proved a slayer when he neither threw the javelin nor had any intention of doing so. That complaint is not an answer to my arguments. I am not maintaining that his son threw the javelin or struck himself. I am maintaining that since he moved within range of the javelin, his death was due not to the lad, but to himself; for he was not killed standing in his place. As this running across was his undoing, it follows that if it was at his master’s summons that he ran across, the master would be the person responsible for his deathIt is at first sight odd that so little is made of the part played by the παιδοτρίβης, who would be a vitally important witness, were the case being tried in a modern court of law. But it should not be forgotten that the writer is throughout endeavoring to exhibit the possibilities of the πίστις ἔντεχνος as such. See General Introduction.; but if he moved into the way of his own accord, his death was due to himself.