On The Estate of Ciron

Deposition

You Athenians hold the opinion that both in public and in private matters examination under torture is the most searching test; and so, when you have slaves and free men before you and it is necessary that some contested point should be cleared up, you do not employ the evidence of free men but seek to establish the truth about the facts by putting the slaves to torture. This is a perfectly reasonable course; for you are well aware that before now witnesses have appeared not to be giving true evidence, whereas no one who has been examined under torture has ever been convicted of giving false evidence as the result of being tortured.

And will my opponent, the most impudent of men, demand that you shall believe his fictitious stories and lying witnesses, while he thus declines so sure a method of proof? Our conduct has been quite different. Seeing that we first demanded that recourse should be had to examination under torture on the points about which evidence was to be given, and my opponent refuses to allow this, under these conditions we shall consider that you ought to believe our witnesses. Take, therefore, these depositions and read them to the court.

Depositions

Who are likely to be best acquainted with the events of the distant past? Obviously those who were intimate with my grandfather; they, then, have given evidence of what was told them. Who must necessarily know the facts about the giving of my mother in marriage? Those who betrothed her and those who were present when they betrothed her; the relatives, then, of Nausimenes and of my father have given their evidence. Who know best that my mother was brought up in Ciron's house and was his legitimate daughter? The present claimants clearly give evidence of the truth of these facts by their action in declining to put the slaves to torture. Thus, I think, you have much better reason for disbelieving their witnesses than mine.

Now there are other proofs which we can bring forward to show that we are the children of Ciron's daughter. For, as was natural, seeing that we were the sons of his own daughter, Ciron never offered a sacrifice without our presence; whether he was performing a great or small sacrifice, we were always there and took part in the ceremony. And not only were we invited to such rites but he also always took us into the country for the Dionysia,

and we always went with him to public spectacles and sat at his side, and we went to his house to keep all the festivals; and when he sacrificed to Zeus Ctesius[*](Zeus as the guardian of family possessions.)—a festival to which he attached a special importance, to which he admitted neither slaves nor free men outside his own family, at which he personally performed all the rites—we participated in this celebration and laid our hands with his upon the victims and placed our offerings side by side with his, and took part in all the other rites, and he prayed for our health and wealth, as he naturally would, being our grandfather.

Yet if he had not regarded us as his daughter's children and seen in us his only surviving lineal descendants, he would have done none of these things but would have placed at his side my opponent, who now claims to be his nephew. And that I am telling the truth on all these points is well known to my grandfather's attendants, whom my opponent refused to give up to be questioned; the same facts are perfectly well known to some of his intimate friends also, whose evidence I will produce. Please take and read the depositions.

Depositions

But it is not only from these proofs that our mother is clearly shown to be the legitimate daughter of Ciron; but there is also the evidence of our father's conduct and the attitude adopted by the wives of his fellow-demesmen towards her. When our father took her in marriage, he gave a wedding-feast and invited three of his friends as well as his relatives, and he gave a marriage-banquet to the members of his ward according to their statutes.