Greek Texts & Translations

To prove that I am telling the truth in this, the clerk shall read you the law itself.Law

It shall be lawful to introduce hearsay evidence from one that is dead, and written evidence given in absence from one who is out of the country, or is sick.

46.9Now I wish to prove to you that he has given evidence contrary to another law also, that you may know that Phormio, having no harbor of refuge from the grievous wrongs he has committed, had made a pretence of the challenge, but actually has given evidence for himself, screening himself behind the testimony of these men, by which the jurymen were deceived, assuming that they were testifying to the truth, and I was robbed of the property which my father left me and of reparation for the wrongs which I have suffered. For the laws do not permit a man to give evidence for himself either in criminal suits or in civil suits or in audits. Phormio, however, has given evidence for himself, when these men say that they have given this testimony on the strength of what they heard from him.

46.10But that you may be fully convinced of this, please read the law itself.Law

The two parties to a suit shall be compelled to answer one another's questions, but they may not testify.

Now consider this law also which ordains that action for false testimony may also be brought on this very ground, namely, that one testifies contrary to law.Law

The witness shall also be liable to action for giving false testimony on the mere ground that he gives evidence contrary to law, and the one producing him shall also be liable in the selfsame manner.

46.11Furthermore, even from the tablet upon which the deposition is written one can tell that he has given false evidence. For it is whitened, and was prepared at home. ^note Yet it is only those who testify to facts who should offer depositions prepared at home; those who testify to challenges, who stand forward on the spur of the moment, should present their depositions written in wax, in order that, if one wants to add or to erase anything, it may be easier to do so. 46.12In all these things, then, he is shown to have given false testimony, and to have given it contrary to law; but I wish to prove this further fact, that our father did not make a will, and could not legally make one. For, if anyone should ask you in accordance with what laws we should live as citizens, you would of course answer, the established laws. But look you, the laws ordain, “nor shall it be permitted to enact a law applying to an individual, unless the same law applies also to all the Athenians.” 46.13This law, then, ordains that we should live as citizens under the same laws and not one under one law, another under another. But my father died during the archonship of Dysnicetus, ^note and Phormio became an Athenian citizen during the archonship of Nicophemus, ^note in the tenth year after my father died. How, then, could my father, not knowing that Phormio was to become an Athenian citizen, have given him in marriage his own wife, and thus have outraged us, shown his contempt of the gift of citizenship which he had received from you, and disregarded your laws? And which was the more honorable course for him—to do this during his lifetime, supposing he wished to do it, or to leave behind him at his death a will which he had no legal right to make? 46.14And verily, when you have heard the laws themselves you will see clearly that Pasio had no right to make a will.

Read the law.Law

Any citizen, with the exception of those who had been adopted when Solon entered upon his office, and had thereby become unable either to renounce or to claim an inheritance, ^note shall have the right to dispose of his own property by will as he shall see fit, if he have no male children lawfully born, unless his mind be impaired by one of these things, lunacy or old age or drugs or disease, or unless he be under the influence of a woman, or under constraint or deprived of his liberty. ^note

46.15You have heard the law, then, which does not permit a man to dispose of his property by will, if he have male children lawfully born. But these men declare that my father made this will, yet they cannot prove that they were present at the time. Another thing also deserves to be borne in mind, that it is to those who had not been adopted, but were lawfully born, that the law gives the right, in case of their being childless, to dispose of their property by will. Now my father had been adopted as a citizen by the people, so that on this account also he had not the right to make a will, especially in regard to his wife, of whom he was not even the legal guardian; and besides he had children.