Against Pantaenetus

Well then, that he released me from all claims, when I sold the slaves to him, I have proved to you; and that the laws do not allow suits to be brought in such cases you have heard from the law which has just been read. However, that no one of you, men of Athens, may suppose that it is because I am at a disadvantage regarding the rights of the matters at issue that I have recourse to this special plea, I propose to show you that in every one of his charges against me his statements are false.

Read the complaint itself, which he brings against me.

The Complaint

Nicobulus has harmed me by laying a plot against me and against my property, having ordered Antigenes, his slave, to take away from my slave the silver which he was bringing to be paid to the state for the mining property which I bought for ninety minae,[*](Presumably the amount due to the state for the purchase of the mine, though the sum differs from the amount secured by the mortgage.) and having also caused me to be inscribed as debtor to the treasury for double that amount.

Stop reading. All these charges which he has now lodged against me he previously made against Evergus, and won his suit. Now evidence has been brought before you in the opening of my speech that I was not in the country when these men quarrelled with one another; but the fact is clear from the complaint itself. For he nowhere stated that I have done any of these things, but, suggesting that I laid a plot against him and against his property, he declares that I ordered my slave to commit these acts; and in this he lies. For how could I have given this order, seeing that at the time I set sail I could by no possibility have had knowledge of what was going to happen here?

And then how absurd when he says that I plotted to disenfranchise him and bring him to utter ruin, to have written in the charge that I ordered a slave to do this,—a thing which even a citizen could not do to another citizen.[*](That is, disenfranchisement could come only by act of the state itself.) What, then, is the meaning of this? I suppose that, being unable to refer to me the doing of any of these acts, but wishing to go on with his malicious suit, he wrote in the complaint that I had given the order. There was no sense in his charge, if he had not done this.

Read what follows.

The Complaint

And after I had become a debtor to the state, having stationed his slave Antigenes in my mining property at Thrasyllus,[*](A site in Maroneia, so called from a monument of Thrasyllus which stood there.) in full control of my works, although I forbade him ---

Stop reading. In all this he will again be convicted of falsehood by the facts themselves; for he has written in the complaint that I stationed the slave and that he forbade me. But this was impossible in the case of one who was not in the country. Neither did I station anyone, seeing that I was in Pontus, nor did he forbid a man who was not in Athens. How could he?

What was it, then, that forced him to make this statement? I fancy that Evergus, at the time he made the mistakes[*](A euphemism for the violence and lawlessness with which Evergus had been charged by Pantaenetus.) for which he has paid the penalty, being on friendly terms with me and well known, took the slave from my house and stationed him at his own works to keep guard. If, then, he had written the truth, it would have been ridiculous. For, if Evergus stationed the slave there, wherein do I wrong you? It was to avoid this absurdity that he was compelled to write as he did, that his charge might be directed against me.

Read what follows.

The Complaint

And then having persuaded my slaves to sit in the foundry[*](The precise meaning of κεγχρεών cannot be determined. It seems to have denoted either the pit into which the silver was run when melted, or the furnace in which it was refined.) to my prejudice.

This is out-and-out impudence. Not only from my challenging him to give up these slaves for torture and from his refusing to do so, but from every circumstance of the case its falsehood is manifest. Why, pray, should I have induced them to do this? That, forsooth, I might get possession of them. But when the option was given me either to keep the property or to recover my money, I chose to recover my money; and of this you have heard the evidence.

Nevertheless, read the challenge.

The Challenge

Although he did not accept the challenge, but declined it, see what a charge he makes immediately thereafter.Read what comes next.

The Complaint

And having reduced the silver-ore which my slaves had dug, and keeping the silver smelted from that ore.

Again, how could this have been done by me when I was not here?—things, too, for which you won a judgement against Evergus?

Read the further charges.

The Complaint

And having sold my mining property and the slaves, contrary to the agreement which he had made with me.

Stop reading. This far outdoes all the rest. For in the first place he says, contrary to the agreement which he had made with me. What agreement is this? We leased our own property to this man, at a rent equal to the interest on the loan; that was all. It was Mnesicles who sold it to us, in the presence of the plaintiff and at his request.

Afterwards in the same way we sold the property to others on the same terms upon which we had ourselves bought it, and the plaintiff not only urged but actually implored us to do so; for no one was willing to accept him as the vendor. What, then, does the agreement to lease it have to do with the matter? Why, most worthless of men, did you insert that clause?

However, to prove that we resold the property at your request, and on the same terms as those upon which we ourselves bought it, read the deposition.

The Deposition

You are yourself also a witness to this; for what we purchased for one hundred and five minae, this you afterward sold for three talents and twenty-six hundred drachmae. And yet who, if he had you[*](The title was not vested in Pantaenetus, but in the other claimants to whom it had been transferred at his request.) as one to complete a final sale, would have given a single drachma?

To prove that I speak the truth in this, call, please, the witnesses who establish the facts.

The Witnesses

He has, then, received the sum which he agreed to take for his property,—he even begged me that I should assume the position of vendor for the sum which I had advanced—yet this same man sues me for two talents more. And the rest of the charges are even more outrageous.

Read, please, the remainder of the complaint.

The Complaint

Here he brings against me in one mass a host of dreadful charges; for he accuses me of assault and battery, outrage, and of violent wrongs even against heiresses.[*](See Dem. 37.45; and compare the oration against Meidias (Dem. 21.79).) But for each of these wrongdoings actions are separate; they do not come before the same magistrates and they are not for the recovery of the same penalties. Assault and battery and crimes of violence come before the Forty[*](The Forty were circuit judges.); cases of outrage before the Thesmothetae; and all crimes against heiresses before the Archon.[*](That is, the chief archon.) And the laws grant the filing of pleas to bar action also in case of charges brought before magistrates who have not due competency.

Read them this law.

The Law

Although I had entered this exception in bar of action in addition to the other, and although the Thesmothetae have not competency in the matters concerning which Pantaenetus is bringing his suit, it has been erased, and is not found in the plea as written. How this has come about it is for you to consider.[*](He hints that the omission of the exception filed by him was not an accident.) To me, so long as I am able to produce the law itself, it makes not the slightest difference; for he will not be able to erase from your minds your power to know and understand the right.

Take also the mining law. For I think I can show you from this, too, that the action is not maintainable, and that I deserve thanks rather than to be made the object of a baseless and malicious charge.

Read.

The Law

This law has clearly defined in what cases mining actions may properly be brought. Observe—the law makes a man liable if he eject another from his workings; but I, far from ejecting the plaintiff, gave over to him and put him in possession of that of which another was seeking to deprive him; and I became the vendor of it at his request.

Yes, says he, but if one commit other wrongs concerning mines, for these, too, actions may be brought. Certainly, Pantaenetus; but what are these? If one smokes out another, if one makes an armed attack, if one makes cuttings which encroach upon another’s workings. These are the other cases; but I, of course, have done nothing of this sort to you, unless you hold that people who seek to recover what they had risked in a loan to you are making an armed attack. If you hold that view, you have mining suits against all those who risk their own money.

But there is no justice in that. For consider—if a man purchases a mine from the state, shall he disregard the general laws in accordance with which all men are bound to render and obtain justice, and bring suit in a mining court, if he borrows from another?—if he be evil spoken of?—if he be beaten?—if he charge one with theft?—if he fail to recover money advanced for another’s tax?—if, in short, he has any other ground for action?

I think not. Mining suits, in my judgement, are to be brought against those sharing in the business of mining and those who have bored through into another’s property, and, in short, against those engaged in mining who do any of the things mentioned in the law. But a man who has lent money to Pantaenetus, and by persistently sticking to him has with difficulty got it back, is not also to be made defendant in a mining suit; I should say not!

That I have, therefore, done no wrong to the defendant and that the suit is not admissible under the laws one may easily determine from a consideration of these points. So, as he had not a single valid argument to advance in support of his charges, but had even incorporated false statements in his complaint, and was bringing suit regarding claims for which he had given a release, last month, men of Athens, when I was on the point of entering the court, and the court-rooms had already been allotted to the jurymen, he came up to me and surrounded me with his minions (that gang of his fellow-conspirators), and did a most outrageous thing.

He read me a long challenge, demanding that a slave who, he claimed, was acquainted with the facts, should be put to the torture; and that, if the facts as alleged by him were true, I should have to pay him the damages charged without adjustment by the jury; but if they were false, Mnesicles, the torturer, should determine the value of the slave. When he had received sureties to this agreement from me and I had sealed the challenge (not that I thought it fair;