Greek Texts & Translations

45.85I bid adieu to this fellow and appeal to those to whom my father left me as my helpers and friends—to you, men of the jury. And I beg and entreat and implore you, do not suffer my daughters and myself through our poverty to become a source of malicious joy to my own slaves and to his flatterers. My father gave you a thousand shields and made himself serviceable to you in many ways, and five times served as trierarch, voluntarily equipping the ships and manning them at his own expense. I remind you of this, not because I consider that you are under obligation to me—for it is I that am under obligation to you,—but in order that I may not suffer unworthy treatment without your knowing it. For that would not be a credit to you any more than to me.

45.86I have much to say regarding the indignities which I have suffered, but I see that I have not enough water left in the clock. I will tell you, therefore, how I think you will all best come to know the enormity of the wrongs that have been done me. You must each of you consider what slave he left at home, and then imagine that you have suffered from him the same treatment that I have suffered from Phormio. Do not take into consideration that they are severally Syrus or Manes or what not, while this fellow is Phormio. The thing is the same—they are slaves, and he was a slave; you are masters, and I was master. 45.87Believe, then, that it is fitting now for me to exact the penalty which each one of you would claim; and in the interest of the laws and of the oaths which you have taken as jurors punish the man who has robbed me of a verdict by giving false testimony, and make him an example to others, remembering all that you have heard from me and bearing it in mind, if they attempt to mislead you, and meeting them at every point. If they deny that they have borne witness to all the facts, ask them these questions, “What stands written in the deposition? Why did you not strike it out at the time? What is the counter-plea in the custody of the archons?” 45.88If they declare that they have testified, one person that he lived as ward under a will, another that he served as guardian, and another that he has the will in his possession, demand of them, “What will? What were the provisions contained in it?” For to the deposition to which these men bore witness no one of the others has given corroborative testimony. But if they try whining tactics, you should consider that the one wronged is more deserving of pity than those about to be punished. If you act in this way, you will succor me, and you will restrain these men from their excessive adulation; and to your own satisfaction you will have rendered a righteous verdict.