There 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.

If 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.

Lycon, the Heracleote,Heraclea, a colony of the Megarians and Boeotians on the coast of Bithynia, on the Black Sea. 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 DeceleaDecelea, a deme of the tribe Hippothontis. and Archebiades of Lamptrae,Lamptrae, a deme of the tribe Erectheïs. and a man of prudence. This Lycon, when he was about to set out on a voyage to Libya, reckoned up his account with my father in the presence of Archebiades and Phrasias, and ordered my father to pay the money which he left (it was sixteen minae forty drachmae, as I shall show you very clearly) to Cephisiades, saying that this Cephisiades was a partner of his, a resident of Scyros,Scyros, an island in the Aegean, east of Euboea. but was for the time being abroad on another mercantile enterprise.