Against Stephanus I

Well, my father died at Athens, the arbitration took place in the Painted Stoa,[*](The Painted Stoa was the largest and finest of the porticoes surrounding the agora. It got its name from the famous paintings with which its walls were adorned.) and these men have deposed that Amphias produced the document before the arbitrator. Then, if it was genuine, the document ought to have been put into the box,[*](See Aristot. Ath. Pol. 53.2) and the one producing it should have so testified, in order that the jurymen might have reached a decision in accordance with the truth and after an inspection of the seals; and I, on my part, if anyone was wronging me, might have proceeded against him.

But, as it is, no one person has taken the whole matter upon himself or given straightforward testimony, as one would do in testifying to the truth, but each has deposed to a part of the story, fancying that he is very clever and that for this reason he will escape punishment,—one of them deposing that he holds a document on which is written the will of Pasio; another that, being sent by the former person, he produced this document, but had no knowledge as to whether it was genuine or spurious.

These men, who are here in court, using the challenge as a screen, deposed to a will in such a way that the jurymen believed this will to be my father’s, and I was debarred from obtaining a hearing regarding my wrongs, but in such a way also that they on their part would most clearly be convicted of having given false testimony. And yet this was the very opposite of what they intended.

However, that you may know that I am speaking the truth in this, (to the clerk) take the deposition of Cephisophon.

The Deposition

Cephisophon, son of Cephalion, of Aphidna,[*](Aphidna was a deme of the tribe Aeantis.) deposes that a document was left him by his father, on which was inscribed the will of Pasio.

It was a simple thing, men of the jury, for the one who gave this testimony to add and this is the document which the deponent exhibits, and to put the document into the box. But, I presume, he thought that this falsehood would deserve your indignation, and that you would punish him for it, whereas to testify that a document had been bequeathed to him was a trifling matter and one of no consequence. And yet it is this very thing that makes the whole matter clear, and proves that they have concocted it.

For if the inscription on the will had been the property of Pasio and Phormio or in the matter of Phormio, or something of that sort, he would naturally have kept it for him; but if, as he has testified, the inscription was the will of Pasio, I should certainly have appropriated it, knowing that I was about to go to law, and knowing further that, if its contents were as represented, it was prejudicial to my interests; for I was the heir, and if the will was my father’s, it belonged to me, as did also all the rest of my father’s estate.

Well then, by its having been produced to Phormio, by its having been inscribed the will of Pasio, and yet ignored by me, it is proved that the will is a forgery and that the testimony of Cephisophon is false. But no more of Cephisophon; it is not with him that I have to do at present, and he has given no testimony as to the contents of the will.

And yet, men of Athens, I would have you consider how strong a proof this also is that these men have given false testimony. For when the witness who stated that he had the document in his own possession did not dare to say that the one produced by Phormio was a copy of the one in his own keeping; and when these men cannot state that they were present in the first instance or that they saw the document opened before the arbitrator, but have themselves actually deposed that I refused to open it, to have testified now that the one is a copy of the other, is not this to have accused themselves of falsifying?

More than all this, men of Athens, any man by examining the wording of the deposition can see that it is nothing but a contrivance of theirs to the end that rightly or wrongly it may appear that my father made this will.

(To the clerk.) But take the deposition itself, and read, stopping wherever I bid you, that from its own wording I may prove my point.

The Deposition

--- depose that they were present before the arbitrator Teisias, when Phormio challenged Apollodorus, if he declared that the document was not a copy of the will of Pasio ---