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Cratinus and his friends went to the house where she had been hidden, seized her by force and, bringing her into court, presented her alive to all present. The result was that, in a tribunal of seven hundred judges, after fourteen witnesses had given the same testimony as that of Callimachus, he failed to receive a single vote. Please call witnesses to these facts.
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Witnesses
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Who, therefore, would be able to condemn his acts as they deserve? Or who would be able to find a more flagrant example of wrongdoing, of malicious prosecution, and of villainy? Some misdeeds, it is true, do not reveal in its entirety the character of the evil-doers, but from acts such as his it is easy to discern the whole life of the culprits.
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For any man who testifies that the living are dead, from what villainy do you think that he would abstain? What outrageous deed would a man not have the effrontery to commit in his own interest who is so knavish a villain in the interest of others ? How is it right to trust this man when he speaks in his own behalf, who is proved guilty of perjury in his testimony on behalf of another? Who was ever more convincingly proved to be a giver of false testimony? You judge all other defendants by what is said of them, but this man’s testimony the jurors themselves saw was false.
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And after the commission of such crimes he will dare to say that it is we who are lying. Why that would be as if PhrynondasA notorious swindler; cf. Aristoph. Thes. 861 and Aeschin. 3.137. should reproach a man with villainy, or as if Philurgos, who stole the Gorgon’s head,The golden relief of the head, the work of Pheidias, was affixed to the shield of the gold and ivory statue of Athena in the Parthenon. had called everybody else temple-robbers! Who is more likely to present witnesses of events which have not occurred than my antagonist here, who himself has the hardihood to testify falsely for others?
