Against Stephanus II

I wish therefore to prove to you that the deposition is not a challenge, and to show you how they ought to have deposed if the challenge was given, which it was not,—The deponents testify that they were present before the arbitrator Teisias, when Phormio challenged Apollodorus to open the document which Amphias, the brother-in-law of Cephisophon, produced, and that Apollodorus refused to open it. If they had given their evidence in this way, they would have appeared to be speaking the truth. But to depose that what was written in the document which Phormio produced was a copy of the will of Pasio, without having been present when Pasio made the will, or knowing that he had made one, does this not seem to you to be a manifest piece of insolence?

And surely, if he says that he believed this to be true because Phormio said it was, it would be like the same man to believe him when he said this, and to testify to it at his bidding. The laws, however, do not say this, but ordain that a man may testify to what he knows, or to matters at the doing of which he was present, and that his testimony must be committed to writing in order that it may not be possible to subtract anything from what is written, or to add anything to it.

Hearsay evidence they do not admit from a living person, but only from one who is dead; but in the case of those who are sick or absent from the country they allow evidence to be introduced, provided it be in written form, and the absent witness and the one submitting his testimony shall alike be liable to action under the same impeachment, in order that, if the absent witness acknowledges his evidence, he may be liable to action for giving false testimony, and if he does not acknowledge it, the one who submitted his testimony may be liable.

Now Stephanus here, without knowing that my father left a will or having ever been present when he drew one up, but having been told this by Phormio, has given hearsay evidence which is false, and has done it in defiance of the law.

To prove that I am telling the truth in this, the clerk shall read you the law itself.

The Law

It shall be lawful to introduce hearsay evidence from one that is dead, and written evidence given in absence from one who is out of the country, or is sick.