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Among other things-for this I just remember-they are so outrageously impudent, as to have put in a deposition of Crito, stating that he has purchased from me the third part of the house; the falsehood of which you will easily perceive. For, in the first place, Crito does not live so economically as to purchase another man's house, but with such reckless extravagance that he spends other men's property as well as his own. In the next place, he is not so much this man's witness as my adversary on the present occasion. For, as every one knows, those are witnesses, who are not concerned in the subject matter of the suit; those are adversaries, who have an interest in the questions upon which one goes to law with them; as is the case with Crito. Besides, men of the jury, out of all your numbers, out of the multitude of people living at Athens, not a single other witness has said that he was present at this transaction: Timocrates only, as if he were brought on the stage by a machine, deposes, that my father gave a feast for Bootus on the tenth day, he (the witness) being a person of the same age as the defendant; Timocrates says that he knows absolutely everything which is for the advantage of these men; Timocrates now declares, that he alone was with Crito when he purchased the house from me. Which of you will believe this story? No one, I am sure; especially when the question in this cause is not about the house, whether Crito has purchased it or not, but about the marriage-portion which my mother brought to my father, and which therefore the laws enable me to recover. As I then have proved to you by a mass of testimony and circumstantial evidence, that my mother brought a marriageportion of a talent, that I have not received it out of my father's estate, and that the house was reserved by us as security for its repayment, so also require the defendant to prove to you, either that I do not speak the truth, or that I am not entitled to recover the marriage-portion; for these are the questions upon which you have to give your verdict. If Bootus has neither credible witnesses nor proofs of any other kind to offer on the matters upon which he is sued, and therefore introduces irrelevant topics for the purpose of deceit ; if he blusters and talks of hardships and uses language foreign to the occasion; by Jupiter and the Gods! do not tolerate such behaviour; give me that redress which all the reasons I

have urged show me to be entitled to; and remember, that it is far more just that you should by your verdict give my mother's fortune to my daughter for her dowry, than that Plangon and her sons, adding another injury to those which they have already inflicted, should, contrary to every principle of justice, deprive me of the house, which was specially reserved as a security for the marriage portion.

THE ORATION AGAINST SPUDIAS.

THE ARGUMENT.

THE plaintiff, whose name does not appear, had married one of the two daughters of Polyeuctus, an Athenian. By the marriage contract he was to receive with his wife a portion of forty minas. Thirty minas were given to him in ready money; the remaining ten were to be paid after the death of his father in law; and Leocrates, who had married the other sister and been adopted by Polyeuctus, agreed to be responsible for the payment. Polyeuctus afterwards quarrelled with Leocrates; an arrangement was with some difficulty effected between them, Leocrates retiring out of the family, and agreeing to a separation from his wife, who was transferred with her marriage portion to Spudias, the present defendant. Polyeuctus then, to secure the ten minas to the plaintiff, mortgaged his house to him, and subsequently by his will directed that tablets of mortgage should be put up. (As to these see ante, p. 145, and also Appendix II. in this Volume.)

Upon the death of Polyeuctus without male issue, his estate descended to his two daughters as co-heiresses. The plaintiff however, in his own and in his wife's right, had certain demands upon the defendant, which by this action he sought to enforce. In the first place, he claimed the ten minas, the residue of his wife's portion, secured by the mortgage of the house. He claimed also half a mina, as the defendant's contribution to a funeral sacrifice, offered in honour of their father in law. Further, he required that two several sums of eighteen minas and two minas, one of which Spudias had borrowed of his mother in law, and the other he owed to Polyeuctus for the purchase of a slave, should be paid by him to the estate, or brought into the general account; together with certain articles of property which he had borrowed and never returned.

The plaintiff supports his claim by the production of various depositions, by the will of Polyeuctus, and by certain sealed papers which had been left by his mother in law. We collect in some measure from the plaintiff's speech, what the defendant's answer to the claim was. Spudias contended that Polyeuctus and his wife were acting under undue influence, and gave an unjust preference to the plaintiff.

He denied the truth of the charges made against himself, as well as the plaintiff's title to the ten minas, and with respect to that part of the claim he alleged in particular, that he himself had only received thirty minas in money as his wife's portion, the rest being made up of dress and ornaments, to which the plaintiff had received an equivalent in value, and therefore, if the plaintiff's demand were allowed, he (Spudias) would not have his equal share of the inheritance. The plaintiff's arguments are partly directed to meet these points of defence, which (he contends) are false in fact and bad in law.

SPUDIAS the defendant and I, men of the jury, are married to two sisters, the daughters of Polyeuctus. He having died without male issue, I am compelled to go to law with the defendant about the property which has been left. And if, men of the jury, I had not been perfectly willing and made every endeavour to come to a settlement and refer our differences to friends, I should have blamed myself for not submitting to a trifling loss rather than engaging in a troublesome lawsuit. But, the more kindness and forbearance I showed in discussing the matter with Spudias, the more contemptuously he treated me. And now, I apprehend, I am not in the same position that he is with regard to the present trial. The defendant takes it easily, being accustomed to come often before you here: I am afraid that, through my inexperience, I may not be able even to explain the case to you. However, men of the jury, I pray your attention.

Polyeuctus was a member of the Thriasian township; perhaps some of you may have heard of him. This Polyeuctus, as he had no male issue, adopts Leocrates, the brother of his wife. Having two daughters by the sister of Leocrates, he gives the elder to me with a portion of forty minas, and the younger to Leocrates. So things stood, when a quarrel took place between Polyeuctus and Leocrates, the nature of which there is no need to mention, and Polyeuctus takes away his daughter and gives her to Spudias the defendant. Leocrates, in high dudgeon, commenced actions against Polyeuctus and Spudias, and they were called upon to meet all the claims that he advanced against them. At length however they came to a settlement, upon the terms that Leocrates should receive back all that he had brought into the estate, that he should be reconciled to Polyeuctus, and that they should give mutual releases from all demands. Why, men of the jury, “ have I stated these facts to you? Because I did not receive

the whole of my wife's portion, but a thousand drachms were left unpaid, with the assurance that I should have them on the death of Polyeuctus; and, so long as Leocrates was the heir of Polyeuctus, he was responsible to me for the payment of the debt; but, when Leocrates had quitted the family, and Polyeuctus was dangerously ill, then, men of the jury, I got a mortgage for ten minas upon this house, of which Spudias prevents me receiving the rents.

I will first produce the witnesses who were present, when Polyeuctus contracted to give me his daughter with a portion of forty minas: then I will prove that I received it less a thousand drachms; and further, that Polyeuctus always admitted that he owed me that sum, and introduced Leocrates to me as a party jointly liable,1 and that at the last he directed by his will, that tablets should be put on the house for a thousand drachms owing to me in respect of my wife's portion. Call me the witnesses.

[The Witnesses.]

This, men of the jury, is one of the claims which I make against Spudias. And in support of it what stronger or more convincing argument could I have brought before you than the law, which expressly declares, that there shall be no right of action for property which people have mortgaged, neither for them nor for their heirs? Nevertheless Spudias is come here to contest this point of law. My next claim, men of the jury, is the following. Aristogenes has deposed, that Polyeuctus on his death-bed claimed two minas as owing to him from Spudias, with interest; (it was the price of a domestic servant, whom the defendant had purchased of Polyeuctus, but neither paid him the money nor has brought it now into the general account:2) and there are also eighteen hundred drachms, as to which I have not the least idea what he can have to say. He had borrowed the money from the wife of Polyeuctus, and there are some papers which she left

1 Or, as guarantee; or the party to whom I was to look for payment after his death. Pabst "als Mitschuldner mir vorgestellt." Schäfer explains ovornoa in like manner, referring to Meier, Attic Process, page 503.

2 Reiske in his Index-"in censum infert-in recensione reliquarum rerum commemorat." Pabst-" ohne dass er auch jetzt zu der Erbschaftsmasse die Summe eingeworfen hätte."

on her death-bed, and the brothers of the lady are witnesses; they were present while she wrote them, and questioned her as to every particular, that there might be no unpleasantness between us. It is shameful and cruel, men of the jury, when for everything which I either bought of Polyeuctus or had from his wife I have paid the price with interest, and when now I bring everything which I owed into the general account, that the defendant should regard neither your laws nor the will of Polyeuctus nor the papers which have been left nor the witnesses who know the facts, but should have come in the face of all this to contest my demand.

Please to take first the statute, which declares that there shall be no right of action for mortgaged property against those who hold the mortgage, then the papers which were left, and the deposition of Aristogenes. Read.

of

[The Law. The Papers. The Deposition.]

I will now, men of the jury, explain to you the particulars my other claims. They received from the wife of Polyeuctus a plate, which they pawned with some jewellery, and this they have not redeemed and brought into the account, as Demophilus, to whom it was pawned, will testify. And a parasol which they have taken-this they don't account for; and there are some more articles of the same kind. And lastly, though my wife advanced a mina in silver, to defray the expenses of a funeral offering 2 for her father, even of this he refuses to contribute his share: but this is the way he proceeds what is justly his own he has either had beforehand, or will receive in the partition of the property; his liabilities he openly refuses to discharge.3

1 So Harpocration interprets σknvnv in this passage. Pabst and Auger give it the ordinary meaning of a tent. Reiske thinks it might signify the curtains and hangings of a four-post bed.

2 Literally "the Nemesea," which Reiske interprets as follows"videntur inferiæ fuisse Nemesi factæ, ne manes defuncti succenserent superstitibus, si forte per imprudentiam aliquid justorum omisissent aut a testamenti sententiâ descissent." He himself would prefer to read vekúσia, which were offerings to the dead on the anniversary of the day of death.

3 The antithetical form of the sentence, ἃ μὲν τῶν δὲ—τὰ δὲ-cannot well be kept up in English.

It is to be understood thus: ἃ μὲν ἔχει προλαβών, refers to gifts or payments which Spudias had had during the life of his father in law, for

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