On The Estate Of Pyrrhus

When direct evidence has to be given in court, we are obliged to employ those who were actually present, whosoever they are, as witnesses; but when it is a question of obtaining a written deposition from a witness who is ill or about to go abroad, each of us summons by preference the most reputable among his fellow-citizens and those best known to us,

and we always have written depositions made in the presence not of one or two only but of as many witnesses as possible, in order to preclude the deponent from denying his deposition at some future date, and to give his evidence more weight in your eyes by the unanimous testimony of many honest men.

Thus, when Xenocles went to our factory at the mines at Besa,[*](Besa is situated in the extreme south of Attica near Laurium. It appears that the estate of Pyrrhus included a factory at Besa and that Xenocles proceeded thither after the death of Pyrrhus in order to take possession of it: knowing that he would be forcibly prevented from doing so, he took with him witnesses of his eviction.) he did not think it sufficient to rely on any chance person who happened to be there as witness regarding the eviction, but took with him from Athens Diophantus of Sphettus, who defended him in the former case, and Dorotheus of Eleusis,[*](See Introduction.) and his brother Philochares, and many other witnesses, having invited them to make a journey of nearly three hundred stades from here to there;

yet when, on the question of the marriage of the grandmother of his own children, he was obtaining, as he declares, a written deposition in Athens itself, he is shown to have summoned none of his own friends but Dionysius of Erchia and Aristolochus of Aethalidae. In the presence of these two men my opponents declare that they obtained the written deposition—a document of this nature in the presence of men whom no one else would trust in any matter whatsoever!

Perhaps it will be urged that it was a trifling matter of secondary importance about which they say that they obtained the deposition from Pyretides, so that negligence in the affair was not surprising. How so, when the trial for perjury, in which Xenocles was defendant, turned upon this very point, as to whether his own wife was the child of a concubine or of a legitimate wife? To attest a deposition like this, if it were really true, would he not have thought fit to summon all his own friends?

Most assuredly he would have done so, I should have thought, if the deposition had been genuine. We see then that he did not do so, but took this deposition before two chance witnesses; Nicodemus, however, the present defendant, says that, when he married his sister to a man with a fortune of three talents, he summoned only a single witness to accompany him!

He pretends that the only person present with him was Pyretides, who denies his assertion; on the other hand, Lysimenes and his brothers, Chaeron and Pylades, declare that they were summoned by Pyrrhus when he was about to make this brilliant match and were present at the ceremony, in spite of the fact that they were uncles of the bridegroom.

It is a matter for you to consider now whether their story seems to be credible. It appears to me, judging from probabilities, that Pyrrhus would have been much more likely to wish to keep the matter secret from all his friends, if he was meditating the making of a contract or the commission of an act discreditable to his family, rather than summon his own uncles as witnesses of so outrageous an act of folly.

Another matter which surprises me is that there was no agreement about a dowry for the woman on the part either of him who gave her or of him who took her in marriage.[*](The legal contract involved by the bestowal of a dowry constituted the most important proof of the legal character of the union.) For, on the one hand, if Nicodemus gave a dowry, it would have been only natural that the amount of the dowry should be mentioned in the evidence of those who allege that they were present; on the other hand, if our uncle, under the influence of his passion, contracted a marriage with a woman of this character, clearly he who gave her in marriage would have been all the more careful to procure an agreement from the other party stating that he received money with her, so that it might not be in the latter's power easily to get rid of the woman whenever he wished.

Also, it is probable that he who gave her in marriage would have summoned many more witnesses than the man who was marrying such a woman; for you all know that such unions are very seldom permanent. The man, then, who alleges that he gave his sister in marriage, declares that he married her to a man with a fortune of three talents without any agreement about a dowry, and the uncles have given evidence that they were present as witnesses on behalf of their nephew when he married a woman of this character without a dowry.

These same uncles have deposed that they were present by invitation of their nephew at the tenth-day ceremony[*](i.e., the ceremony of naming the child.) in honor of the child who was declared to be his daughter. Here I note with the utmost indignation that the husband, in claiming her paternal inheritance on behalf of his wife, has put down her name as Phile, while Pyrrhus's uncles, alleging that they were present, deposed that her father called her Cleitarete, after her grandmother.

I am amazed that the man who had lived with her for more than eight years did not know the name of his own wife. Could he not have found it out before from his own witnesses? Did his wife's mother never in all that long period tell him her daughter's name? Did his uncle, Nicodemus himself, never do so?

No, her husband, instead of giving her her grandmother's name—if it was really known that this name was given her by her father—inscribed her name as Phile, and this when he was claiming the paternal inheritance for her! What was his object? Did the husband wish to deprive his wife of any title to the name of her grandmother bestowed upon her by her father?

Is it not obvious, gentlemen, that the events which they deposed to have happened long ago were invented by them much later for the purpose of claiming the estate?[*](The restoration of the text here is uncertain but the meaning clear.) For otherwise it would have been impossible that the uncles, who were summoned, according to their own account, to the tenth-day ceremony in honor of Pyrrhus's daughter, the defendant's niece, could ever have come into court with so accurate a recollection from that distant date, whenever it was, that her father at that ceremony named her Cleitarete,

but that the nearer relatives, the father and the uncle and the mother should not know the name of the child whom they declare to be Pyrrhus's daughter. They would most certainly have known it, if the fact had been true. But I shall have occasion to return to these uncles later.[*](Isaeus 3.63-71)

As for Nicodemus's evidence it is not difficult to decide from the actual text of the laws that he has obviously committed perjury. For seeing that, if a man gives with a woman a sum not duly assessed in a contract, and if the wife leaves her husband or the hushand puts away his wife, the man who gave the money cannot, as far as the law is concerned, demand back what he gave but did not assess in a contract—the defendant when he states that he gave his sister in marriage without any contract regarding a dowry, is obviously proved to be making an impudent assertion.

For what was likely to be the good to him of the marriage, if the husband could dismiss the wife whenever he wished? And this he certainly could do, if he had made no stipulation that he should receive a dowry with her. Would Nicodemus have married his sister to our uncle on these terms, and this, though he knew all the time that in the past she had produced no offspring, and though the dowry, if it had been assessed in a contract, was coming to him, if anything happened to her before she bore any children?

Does any one of you really think that Nicodemus is so disinterested in money matters that he would neglect any of these considerations? For my part, I do not think it possible. Further, would our uncle have thought of marrying the sister of a man, who, when he was accused of usurping the rights of citizenship by a member of the ward to which he claimed to belong, obtained those rights by a majority of only four votes? And to prove the truth of what I say, read the deposition.

Deposition

The defendant then has given evidence that he gave his sister in marriage to our uncle without a dowry in spite of the fact that such a dowry was to come to him if anything happened to the woman before she had borne any children. Now take and read these laws to the judges.

Laws

Do you think that Nicodemus is so disinterested in money matters, that, if the fact which he alleges were true, he would not have provided for his own interests with scrupulous care? By heaven, I am sure he would have done so; for even those who give their womenkind to others as mistresses make stipulations in advance as to the benefits which such women are to enjoy. And was Nicodemus, when, according to his own account, he was going to give his sister in marriage, content with simply securing the requirements of a legal marriage[*](i.e., without insisting on stipulations regarding a dowry which might eventually benefit him.)—a man who shows himself only too anxious to be dishonest for a paltry sum which he hopes to receive for speaking in court?[*](i.e., as a reward for his false evidence.)