Against Stephanus II

Now I wish to prove to you that he has given evidence contrary to another law also, that you may know that Phormio, having no harbor of refuge from the grievous wrongs he has committed, had made a pretence of the challenge, but actually has given evidence for himself, screening himself behind the testimony of these men, by which the jurymen were deceived, assuming that they were testifying to the truth, and I was robbed of the property which my father left me and of reparation for the wrongs which I have suffered. For the laws do not permit a man to give evidence for himself either in criminal suits or in civil suits or in audits. Phormio, however, has given evidence for himself, when these men say that they have given this testimony on the strength of what they heard from him.

But that you may be fully convinced of this, (to the clerk) please read the law itself.

The Law

The two parties to a suit shall be compelled to answer one another’s questions, but they may not testify.

Now consider this law also which ordains that action for false testimony may also be brought on this very ground, namely, that one testifies contrary to law.

The Law

The witness shall also be liable to action for giving false testimony on the mere ground that he gives evidence contrary to law, and the one producing him shall also be liable in the selfsame manner.

Furthermore, even from the tablet upon which the deposition is written one can tell that he has given false evidence. For it is whitened, and was prepared at home.[*](As the deposition was written, (with a dark pigment) on a whitened tablet, it had obviously been prepared in advance. An off-hand answer to a challenge would have been written on a waxed tablet.) Yet it is only those who testify to facts who should offer depositions prepared at home; those who testify to challenges, who stand forward on the spur of the moment, should present their depositions written in wax, in order that, if one wants to add or to erase anything, it may be easier to do so.

In all these things, then, he is shown to have given false testimony, and to have given it contrary to law; but I wish to prove this further fact, that our father did not make a will, and could not legally make one. For, if anyone should ask you in accordance with what laws we should live as citizens, you would of course answer, the established laws. But look you, the laws ordain, nor shall it be permitted to enact a law applying to an individual, unless the same law applies also to all the Athenians.