Against Callimachus

Although so many persons had been present when the events took place, Callimachus here, as if no one had any knowledge of the matter, himself mixed with the crowds, sat in the workshops, and related again and again his story, how he had suffered outrageous treatment at my hands and had been of his money. And some of his friends came to me and advised me to settle the dispute with him, and not deliberately to risk defamation and great financial loss, even though I had the greatest confidence in my cause; and they went on to say that many decisions rendered in the tribunals were contrary to the expectation of litigants,

and that chance rather than justice determined the issue in your courts. Consequently, they asserted, it was in my interest to be freed of serious charges by paying a petty sum, rather than by paying nothing to run the risk of penalties of such gravity. Why need I relate to you all the details? They omitted none of the arguments which are customarily urged in such cases. In any case I was finally prevailed upon (for I will tell you the whole truth) to give him two hundred drachmas. But in order that it might not be in his power to blackmail me again, we committed the arbitration under stated terms[*](A similar example of arbitration under the stated terms(i.e., limited arbitration, where the arbitrator had no discretonary power) is found in Isoc. 17.19. Cf. Jebb. Attic Orators ii. p. 234.) to Nicomachus of Bat---[*](A lacuna is here indicated by Blass, perhaps kai\ moi ka/lei tou/twn ma/rturas“Please call witnesses to these facts”)

At first Callimachus kept his agreement, but later in complicity with Xenotimus—that falsifier of the laws, corrupter of our tribunals, vilifier of the authorities, and author of every evil—he brought suit against me for the sum of ten thousand drachmas. But when I brought forward in my defense a witness to show that the suit was not within the jurisdiction of the court by reason of the previous arbitration, he did not attack my witness—

for he knew that, if he did not receive the fifth of the votes cast, he would be assessed a penalty of one-sixth of the amount demanded—but having won over the magistrate, he again brought the same suit, in the belief that he risked only his court deposit-fee. And since I was at a loss how to cope with my difficulties, I judged that it was best to make the hazard equal for us both[*](See Introduction to this speech.) and to come before you. And these are the facts.