Greek Texts & Translations

29.35With regard to the maritime loan, ^note the sofa-makers, and the iron and the ivory that were left me, and my sister's marriage-portion, at the purloining of which Aphobus connived in order to secure for himself the right to take whatever he pleased of my goods, listen, and see how just was the verdict given against him, and how absurd it would have been to examine Milyas by torture regarding any of these matters.

29.36For as regards the purloining of funds at which you connived there is a law which expressly declares that you are responsible for them exactly as if you had them in your own possession. So what has the law to do with the testing of a slave by torture? But in the matter of the maritime loan you made common cause with Xuthus, ^note divided the money with him, and destroyed the contract, and now that you have arranged everything to suit your wish, and have done away with the documentary evidence (as Demo testified against you), you have recourse to trickery, and endeavor to mislead these gentlemen. 29.37Regarding the sofa-makers, if you took money, and made large profits for yourself by making loans on security that was mine—you, who should rather have prevented others from doing so—and finally made away with the slaves altogether, what, pray, can the witnesses do in your behalf? These men at any rate have not testified that you admitted lending money on the security of my slaves, and that you appropriated the slaves to yourself. On the contrary, it was you who acknowledged this in your account, and the witnesses testified to the fact against you.

29.38Now look you, as to the ivory and iron, I have this to say: all the slaves of the household know that the plaintiff used to sell these articles. I am ready now, as I was then, to give over to him any one of these slaves whom he may choose to be examined by torture. If then, he alleges that I refuse to surrender the man who has knowledge of the facts, and offer him others who have no such knowledge, he will but show that he ought all the more to have accepted my offer. For if those whom I offered to him as having knowledge of the facts, declared that he had none of these articles in his possession, he would of course have been acquitted of the charge. 29.39But nothing of the sort is the truth. It would have been proved past all question that he had sold the goods, and appropriated the profits. Therefore, he passed over those who were admittedly slaves, and demanded that a freeman be examined by torture, whom it would have been a crime for me to surrender; for it was not his purpose that he should sift out the matter, but that he might make a specious argument out of the fact that his demand was refused.

Regarding, therefore, all these facts, first the marriage-portion, then his connivance with fraud, then all the rest, there shall be read to you the laws and the depositions, that you may have full knowledge.Laws
Depositions

29.40Not only from the facts already adduced can you see that Aphobus was not in any respect whatever prejudiced by my refusal to give the man up for torture, but also from a consideration of the matter itself. Let us suppose that Milyas is being racked upon the wheel, and consider what Aphobus would most wish him to say. Would it not be that he was not aware that the plaintiff had any of the property in his possession? Well, suppose he says so. Does that prove that the plaintiff has none? Far from it; for I produced men who knew, men who paid him the money, men who were present in person, as witnesses. It is convincing proof, not if one is ignorant that a man has something in his possession (for there might be many such), but if one knows that he has it. 29.41But of the many witnesses who testified against you, what one have you sued for false testimony? Tell us. But you cannot. Yet you plainly convict yourself, and prove that you lie when you declare that you have been outrageously treated, and that you lost the suit unjustly, because this man was not given up to you—you who made no charge of giving false testimony against the witnesses who testified that you received and had in your possession the property, concerning which you demanded Milyas for torture to prove that it was never left us. If you had really been wronged, it would have been more fitting to proceed against them. But you were not wronged, and are bringing a baseless suit out of malice.

29.42There are many points from which one may see your rascality, but most of all if one hears how you acted regarding the will. For although my father, men of the jury, wrote a will containing an inventory of all that he left, with instructions for letting the property, this will Aphobus never gave up to me, lest I should learn from it the value of the estate, and admitted possessing only those items which were so well known that he could not deny that he had them.