| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 55.16 | Dem. 55.27 (Greek) | >>Dem. 55.35 |
55.23But I shall now endeavor to show you that he has brought a suit for such heavy damages against me without having suffered any loss or damage worthy of mention. Before they undertook this malicious action against me, my mother and theirs were intimate friends and used to visit one another, as was natural, since both lived in the country and were neighbors, and since, furthermore, their husbands had been friends while they lived.
55.24Well, my mother went to see theirs, and the latter told her with weeping what had happened, and showed her the effects; this, men of the jury, is the way in which I learned all the facts. And I am telling you just what I heard from my mother;—as I speak the truth, so may many blessings be mine; if I am lying, may the opposite befall me. She averred that she saw, and heard from their mother, that some of the barley got wet (she saw them drying it), but not so much as three medimni, note and about half a medimnus of wheat flour; also, she said, a jar of olive oil had tilted over, but had not been damaged.
55.25So trivial, men of the jury, was the loss that befell them, yet for this I am made defendant in a suit with damages fixed at a thousand drachmae! If he repaired an old wall, this surely ought not to be charged against me—a wall moreover which neither fell down nor suffered any damage. So, if I were to concede that I was to blame for everything that occurred, the things that got wet were these.
55.26But since in the beginning my father was within his rights in enclosing the land and these people never made any complaint during the lapse of so long a time, and the others who were severely damaged make no complaint any more than they; and since it is the custom of all of you to drain the water from your houses and lands into the road, and not, heaven knows, to let it flow in from the road, what need is there to say more? These facts of themselves make it clear that the suit against me is a baseless and malicious one, since I am guilty of no wrong, and they have not suffered the damage they allege.
Eleusis note and in other places. But, good heavens, I take it each one of these is not going to claim the right to recover damages from his neighbors.
55.29And I, who might well be angry at their having made the road narrower and raised its level, keep quiet, while these men have such superabundance of audacity, it seems, that they even bring malicious suits against those whom they have injured! But surely, Callicles, if you have the right to enclose your land, we too had the right to enclose ours. And if my father wronged you by enclosing his, you are now wronging me by thus enclosing yours.
55.30For it is evident that, since you have built your obstructing wall with large stones, the water will flow back upon my land, and when it so chances, may with an unlooked-for rush throw down my wall. However, I do not on this account claim damages from these men, but I shall submit to the misfortune, and shall try to protect my own property. For I think the plaintiff is acting wisely in walling in his land, but when he brings suit against me, I hold that he is the basest of men and that some ailment has impaired his wits.
55.27However, to prove to you that they have thrown the rubbish into the road, and by advancing the wall have made the road narrower; and furthermore that I tendered an oath to their mother, and challenged them to have my mother swear in the same terms. Take, please, the depositions and the challenge
Depositions
Challenge
55.28Could there, then, be people more shameless than these, or more plainly malicious pettifoggers—men who, after advancing their own wall and raising the level of the road, are suing others for damages, and that too for a fixed sum of a thousand drachmae, when they have themselves lost fifty at most? And yet consider, men of the jury, how many people in the farm-lands have suffered from floods in
55.31Do not be surprised, men of the jury, at the eagerness of the plaintiff or even at his having dared to bring a false charge against me now. For in a previous instance also, when he induced his cousin to lay claim to my land, he produced an agreement which had never been made. And now he has obtained an award against me for default in a similar suit, entering in the indictment the name of Callarus, one of my slaves. For in addition to their other pieces of rascality they have devised this scheme as well—they bring this same suit against Callarus. 55.32And yet what slave would wall in his master's land without orders from his master? But having no other charge to bring against Callarus, they lodge suit against him regarding the wall which my father built more than fifteen years before his death. And if I give up my property, either by selling it to these men or by exchanging it for other land, Callarus is guilty of no wrong, but if I do not choose to give it up to them, then they are being wronged by Callarus in all manner of grievous ways, and they look out for an arbitrator who will adjudge the property to them, or for some sort of compromise by which they will get possession of it!
55.33Now, men of the jury, if those who lay plots against others and bring baseless suits are to have the best of it, all that I have said would prove of no avail; but if you abominate people of that sort, and vote as justice demands, then, as Callicles has suffered no loss and has in no way been wronged either by Callarus or by my father, I do not see what need there is of my saying more.
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 55.16 | Dem. 55.27 (Greek) | >>Dem. 55.35 |
