Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
<<Dem. 51.16 | Dem. 52.4 (Greek) | >>Dem. 52.14 |
52.1There is no situation harder to deal with, men of the jury, than when a man possessing both reputation and ability to speak is audacious enough to lie and is well provided with witnesses. For it becomes necessary for the defendant, no longer to speak merely about the facts of the case, but about the character of the speaker as well, and to show that he ought not to be believed on account of his reputation. 52.2If you are to establish the custom, that those who are able speakers and who enjoy a reputation are more to be believed than men of less ability, it will be against yourselves that you will have established this custom. I beg you therefore, if you ever decided any other case upon its merits, without becoming partisans of either side, whether the plaintiff's or the defendant's, but looking to justice alone, to decide the present case upon these principles. And I shall set forth the facts to you from the beginning.
52.3Lycon, the Heracleote, note men of the jury, of whom the plaintiff himself makes mention, was a customer of my father's bank like the other merchants, a guest friend of Aristonoüs of Decelea note and Archebiades of Lamptrae, note and a man of prudence. This Lycon, when he was about to set out on a voyage to
To prove that I am speaking the truth, the clerk shall read you the depositions which bear upon all these facts.Depositions
52.8That all I have told you is true, men of the jury, you have learned from the depositions. However, a long time after this, the plaintiff Callippus came up to my father in the city, and asked him if Cephisiades, to whom according to the entry in the book the money left by Lycon the Heracleote was to be paid, had returned to
Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
<<Dem. 51.16 | Dem. 52.4 (Greek) | >>Dem. 52.14 |