On the Choreutes (26-30)

It was to this, then, and nothing less that I challenged the prosecution. Every means which mortal man finds it necessary to use in order to discover the true rights of a matter, they had the opportunity of using; not the vestige of an excuse was left them. I, the defendant, the alleged criminal, was ready to give them the chance of proving my guilt in the fairest possible way; it was they, the prosecutors, the professedly injured party, who refused to obtain proof of such injury as they had sustained.

Suppose that the offer had come from them. Then had I refused to disclose who the eyewitnesses were: had I refused to hand over my servants at their request: or had I been afraid to accept some other challenge, they would be claiming that those facts in themselves afforded to my detriment the strongest presumption of the truth of their charge. Instead, it was I who issued the challenge, and the prosecution who evaded the test. So it was surely only fair that this same fact should afford me a presumption to their detriment that the charge which they have made against me is untrue.

Further, I am certain, gentlemen, that if the witnesses present at the accident were testifying in the prosecution’s favor and against me, the prosecution would be treating them as supremely important: they would be showing that such unfavourable evidence was proof conclusive. As, however, these same witnesses are testifying that what I say is true and that what the prosecution say is not, they urge that the evidence of those witnesses in my favor is untrustworthy; according to them, it is their own statements which you should believe, statements which they would be attacking as false, were I making them myself without witnesses to support me.

Yet it is strange that the witnesses who would be trustworthy, were their evidence favorable to the prosecution, are to be untrustworthy when it is favorable to me. Were I producing eyewitnesses when there had been none, or were I not producing the true eyewitnesses, there would be some ground for treating the statements of the prosecution as more trustworthy than my witnesses. But the prosecution admit that witnesses were actually present: I am producing those witnesses: and both I and all my witnesses are well known to have maintained from the very first day what we are repeating to you now. So what other means than these are to be employed to confirm what is true and to disprove what is not?

If a bare statement of the facts were made, but not supported by the evidence of witnesses, it might well be criticized for the absence of that support; and if witnesses were forthcoming, only to conflict with the presumptions furnished by the pleader, his opponent might well pass a corresponding criticism, should he so wish.