On the Olive Stump

WitnessesWell now, since the termination of that time I have cultivated it myself. My accuser says that in the archonship of Souniades[*](397-396 B.C.) an olive-stump was uprooted by me. And the previous cultivators, who rented it from me for a number of years, have testified to you that there was no stump on the plot. I ask you, how could one convict the accuser more patently of lying? For it is not possible that the cultivator who came after cleared away what was not there before.

Now formerly, gentlemen, whenever people declared me to be a shrewd, exact man who would do nothing at random or without calculation, I would take it hard, feeling that these terms were wide of my true character; but now I should be glad if you all held this opinion of me, so that you should expect me, if I did set about such an act as this, to consider what profit I stood to get by clearing away the stump, and what loss by preserving it, what I should have achieved if I went undetected, and what I should suffer at your hands if I were exposed.

For in every case such acts are done, not for mere mischief, but for profit; and that is the proper direction for your inquiry, and the prosecution should make that the basis of their accusation, by showing what benefit accrued to the wrongdoers.