| Antiphon, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Antiph.]. | ||
| <<Antiph. 5.23 | Antiph. 5.33 (Greek) | >>Antiph. 5.44 |
5.29After I had departed for Aenus and the boat on which Herodes and I had been drinking note had reached Mytilene , the prosecution first of all went on board and conducted a search. On finding the bloodstains, note they claimed that this was where Herodes had met his end. But the suggestion proved an unfortunate one, as the blood turned out to be that of the animals sacrificed. So they abandoned that line, and instead seized the two men and examined them under torture. note
5.30The first, who was tortured there and then, said nothing to damage me. The second was tortured several days later, after being in the prosecution's company throughout the interval. It was he who was induced by them to incriminate me falsely. I will produce witnesses to confirm these facts.
Witnesses5.31You have listened to evidence for the length of the delay before the man's examination under torture; now notice the actual character of that examination. The slave was doubtless promised his freedom: it was certainly to the prosecution alone that he could look for release from his sufferings. Probably both of these considerations induced him to make the false charges against me which he did; he hoped to gain his freedom, and his one immediate wish was to end the torture. 5.32I need not remind you, I think, that witnesses under torture are biassed in favor of those who do most of the torturing; they will say anything likely to gratify them. It is their one chance of salvation, especially when the victims of their lies happen not to be present. Had I myself proceeded to give orders that the slave should be racked for not telling the truth, that step in itself would doubtless have been enough to make him stop incriminating me falsely. As it was, the examination was conducted by men who also knew what their own interests required. 5.33Now as long as he believed that he had something to gain by falsely incriminating me, he firmly adhered to that course; but on finding that he was doomed, he at once reverted to the truth and admitted that it was our friends here who had induced him to lie about me. However, neither his persevering attempts at falsehood nor his subsequent confession of the truth helped him. 5.34They took him, took the man upon whose disclosures they are resting their case against me, and put him to death, note a thing which no one else would have dreamed of doing. As a rule, informers are rewarded with money, if they are free, and with their liberty, if they are slaves. The prosecution paid for their information with death, and that in spite of a protest from my friends that they should postpone the execution until my return. 5.35Clearly, it was not his person, but his evidence, which they required; had the man remained alive, he would have been tortured by me in the same way, and the prosecution would be confronted with their plot: but once he was dead, not only did the loss of his person mean that I was deprived of my opportunity of establishing the truth, but his false statements are assumed to be true and are proving my undoing. Call me witnesses to confirm these facts.
<Witnesses>5.36In my opinion, they should have produced the informer himself in court, if they wished to prove me guilty. That was the issue to which they should have brought the case. Instead of putting the man to death, they ought to have produced him in the flesh and challenged me to examine him under torture. As it is, which of his statements will they use, may I ask: his first or his second? And which is true: the statement that I committed the murder or the statement that I did not? 5.37If we are to judge from probability, it is obviously the second which is the truer; he was lying to benefit himself, but on finding that those lies were proving fatal, he thought that he would be saved by telling the truth. However, he had no one to stand up for the truth, as I, who was vindicated by his second, true statement, was unfortunately not present; while there were those who were ready to put his first, his false one, beyond all reach of future correction. As a rule, it is the victim who quietly seizes an informer and then makes away with him. In this case, it is the very persons who arrested the slave in order to discover the truth who have done so; 5.38and it is the very person who had supplied information against myself with whom they have made away. Had I myself been responsible for his disappearance, had I refused to surrender him to the prosecution or declined to establish the truth in some other way, they would have treated that very fact as most significant: it would have furnished the strongest presumption in their favor that I was guilty. So now that they themselves have declined to submit to an inquiry, in spite of a challenge from my friends to do so, that fact should in the same way furnish a presumption in my favor that the charge which they are bringing is a false one. note 5.39They further allege that the slave admitted under torture that he had been my accomplice in the murder. I maintain that he did not say this; what he said was that he conducted Herodes and myself off the boat, and that after I had murdered him, he helped me pick him up and put him in the boat; then he threw him into the sea.
| Antiphon, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Antiph.]. | ||
| <<Antiph. 5.23 | Antiph. 5.33 (Greek) | >>Antiph. 5.44 |
