Apollodorus Against Callippus

There is no situation harder to deal with, men of the jury, than when a man possessing both reputation and ability to speak is audacious enough to lie and is well provided with witnesses. For it becomes necessary for the defendant, no longer to speak merely about the facts of the case, but about the character of the speaker as well, and to show that he ought not to be believed on account of his reputation.

If you are to establish the custom, that those who are able speakers and who enjoy a reputation are more to be believed than men of less ability, it will be against yourselves that you will have established this custom. I beg you therefore, if you ever decided any other case upon its merits, without becoming partisans of either side, whether the plaintiff’s or the defendant’s, but looking to justice alone, to decide the present case upon these principles. And I shall set forth the facts to you from the beginning.

Lycon, the Heracleote,[*](Heraclea, a colony of the Megarians and Boeotians on the coast of Bithynia, on the Black Sea.) men of the jury, of whom the plaintiff himself makes mention, was a customer of my father’s bank like the other merchants, a guest friend of Aristonoüs of Decelea[*](Decelea, a deme of the tribe Hippothontis.) and Archebiades of Lamptrae,[*](Lamptrae, a deme of the tribe Erectheïs.) and a man of prudence. This Lycon, when he was about to set out on a voyage to Libya, reckoned up his account with my father in the presence of Archebiades and Phrasias, and ordered my father to pay the money which he left (it was sixteen minae forty drachmae, as I shall show you very clearly) to Cephisiades, saying that this Cephisiades was a partner of his, a resident of Scyros,[*](Scyros, an island in the Aegean, east of Euboea.) but was for the time being abroad on another mercantile enterprise.

He instructed Archebiades and Phrasias to point him out and introduce him to my father, when he should return from his journey. It is the custom of all bankers, when a private person deposits money and directs that it be paid to a given person, to write down first the name of the person making the deposit and the amount deposited, and then to write on the margin to be paid to so-and-so; and if they know the face of the person to whom payment is to be made, they do merely this, write down whom they are to pay; but, if they do not know it, it is their custom to write on the margin the name also of him who is to introduce and point out the person who is to receive the money. For a grievous misfortune befell this Lycon.

No sooner had he set out, and was sailing around the Argolic gulf, than his ship was captured by pirate vessels and his goods taken to Argos, while he himself was shot down by an arrow, and met his death. Immediately after this mischance this man Callippus came to the bank, and asked whether they knew Lycon, the Heracleote. Phormion, who is here present, answered that they knew him. Was he a customer of yours? He was, said Phormion, but why do you ask? Why? said he, I will tell you. He is dead, and, as it happens, I am proxenos[*](The proxenos was sort of consular agent, empowered to act in the interest of his country and his countryman in a foreign state.) of the Heracleotes. I demand therefore that you show me your books, that I may know whether he has left any money; for I must of necessity look after the affairs of all the men of Heraclea.

On hearing this, men of the jury, Phormion immediately showed him the books, and, when he had done so, and Callippus (it was he himself, and not another) had read them, and had seen in them the entry, Lycon, the Heracleote, sixteen hundred and forty drachmae, to be paid to Cephisiades; Archebiades of Lamptrae will identify Cephisiades, he went off in silence and for more than five months made no mention of the matter.

After this Cephisiades, having returned to Athens, came to the bank and demanded the money, and in the presence of Archebiades and Phrasias, men of the jury, the persons whom Lycon had introduced to my father, and had hidden to identify Cephisiades, when he should return and in the presence of other witnesses also, Phormion, who is here in court, counted out and paid him the sixteen minae forty drachmae.

To prove that I am speaking the truth, the clerk shall read you the depositions which bear upon all these facts.

The Depositions

That all I have told you is true, men of the jury, you have learned from the depositions. However, a long time after this, the plaintiff Callippus came up to my father in the city, and asked him if Cephisiades, to whom according to the entry in the book the money left by Lycon the Heracleote was to be paid, had returned to Athens. On my father’s replying that he thought so, but, if he wanted to go down to the Peiraeus, he would find out the truth, Callippus said to him, Do you know, Pasion, what it is that I am asking you?—

(and by Zeus and Apollo and Demeter, I shall make no false statement to you, men of the jury, but shall relate to you what I heard from my father)—You have a chance, he continued, to do a good turn to me, and no harm to yourself. It happens that I am proxenos of the Heracleotes, and you would be glad, I should think, to have me get the money rather than an alien who resides in Scyros, and is a man of no account. Matters have turned out like this. Lycon was without children, and has left, as I am informed, no heir in his house.

More than this, when he was brought to Argos, wounded, he gave to Strammenus, the Argive proxenos of the Heracleotes, the property which was brought in with him. I, therefore, am likewise in a position to claim the money that is here; for I think it is right that I should have it. Do you, therefore, if Cephisiades has not recovered it, say, if he should come here, that I dispute his claim; and if he has recovered it, say that I came with witnesses and demanded that the money be produced, or the person who has received it; and, if anyone tries to defraud me, let him know that he is defrauding a proxenos.

After he had spoken thus, my father answered, Callippus, I want to oblige you (I should be mad, if I did not), but on this condition, that I shall not damage my own reputation, nor suffer any loss through the business; to suggest what you propose to Archebiades and Aristonoüs and to Cephisiades himself, can cause me no trouble; but if they do not choose to do as you say at my suggestion, you must talk to them yourself. Be easy in your mind, Pasion, said he; if you like, you will force them to do what I want.

This, men of the jury, is what the plaintiff said to my father, and what my father repeated to Archebiades and Cephisiades at the plaintiff’s request and as a favor to him; and from this, little by little, this suit has been got up. I was ready to swear by the most solemn of oaths, that I verily heard these statements from my father.

The plaintiff, however, who demands that you believe him as one speaking the truth, waited for three years after my father had spoken for the first time to Archebiades and the other friends of Cephisiades, and after they had refused to pay any attention to Callippus or to what he said;

then, when he learned that my father was in poor health, and had difficulty in coming up to the city, and that his sight was failing, he brought an action against him, not indeed an action for money, like the present one, but an action for damages, declaring that my father had wrought him injury by paying to Cephisiades the money which Lycon, the Heracleote, had left in his keeping after having promised not to pay it without the plaintiff’s consent. After he had brought suit, he took back the papers from the public arbitrator, and challenged my father to refer the case to Lysitheides, a friend of Callippus himself and of Isocrates and Aphareus,[*](These were doubtless the famous orator and the tragic poet.) and an acquaintance of my father.

My father gave his consent, and during his lifetime Lysitheides despite his intimacy with these men did not venture to commit any wrong against us. And yet some of the plaintiff’s friends are so lacking in shame, that they had the audacity to depose that Callippus challenged my father to take an oath, and that my father refused to swear before Lysitheides; and they imagine that they can convince you that in that case Lysitheides, a friend of Callippus and the one acting as arbitrator in the case, would have refrained from making an immediate award against my father, especially since my father thus refused to make himself the judge of his own case.[*](By refusing, that is, to take the oath on the basis of which the award would have been made.)

That I am telling the truth and that these men are lying, is proved, I claim, by the very fact that Lysitheides would have made the award against my father, and that I should now be defendant in an ejectment suit, and not in an action for money; and, besides this, I shall bring before you as witnesses the persons who were present on the various occasions when I met the plaintiff before Lysitheides.

The Witnesses

That he did not challenge my father to an oath at that time, but now maligns him after his death, and brings forward his own intimates who recklessly bear false witness against me, you can easily see from the circumstantial evidence and from the deposition. And that I was ready on my father’s behalf to take the oath which the law prescribes when an heir is sued in court on a charge brought against one who is dead,—

that, namely, I believed that my father never agreed to pay the plaintiff the money which Lycon left, and that the plaintiff was not introduced to my father by Lycon; and Phormion was ready to swear that in very truth he had himself reckoned up the amount with Lycon in the presence of Archebiades, and that instructions were given him to pay the money to Cephisiades, and that Archebiades had identified Cephisiades for him;

also that when Callippus came for the first time to the bank, saying that Lycon was dead and that he, Callippus, claimed the right to inspect the books to see whether the Heracleote had left any money, he, Phormion, had at once shown him the books, and that Callippus, after seeing the entry that payment was to be made to Cephisiades, went away in silence, without filing any counterclaim or making any protest to him about the payment of the money—in proof of all these matters the clerk shall read you the depositions which establish both facts, and also the law.

The Depositions. The Law

Now, men of the jury, I shall show you that Lycon had no dealings with Callippus; for I think this will be something to confound the impudent assurance of this man, who asserts that this money was given to him by Lycon as a present. Lycon had lent to Megacleides of Eleusis and his brother Thrasyllus the sum of forty minae for a voyage to Acê[*](Acê, a town on the coast of Phoenicia.) but, when they changed their minds and decided not to risk the voyage to that point, Lycon, after making some complaints against Megacleides regarding the interest, and believing that he had been deceived, quarrelled with him and went to law for the purpose of recovering his loan.