Περὶ τοῦ Ἡρῷδου φόνου

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Yunanca Yunanca

34 They took him, took the man upon whose disclosures they are resting their case against me, and put him to death,It should be noted that the witness was a slave who had been purchased by the prosecution (cf. previous note and Antiph. 5.47, init.). a thing which no one else would have dreamed of doing. As a rule, informers are rewarded with money, if they are free, and with their liberty, if they are slaves. The prosecution paid for their information with death, and that in spite of a protest from my friends that they should postpone the execution until my return.

35 Clearly, it was not his person, but his evidence, which they required; had the man remained alive, he would have been tortured by me in the same way, and the prosecution would be confronted with their plot: but once he was dead, not only did the loss of his person mean that I was deprived of my opportunity of establishing the truth, but his false statements are assumed to be true and are proving my undoing. Call me witnesses to confirm these facts.

36 Witnesses

36 In my opinion, they should have produced the informer himself in court, if they wished to prove me guilty. That was the issue to which they should have brought the case. Instead of putting the man to death, they ought to have produced him in the flesh and challenged me to examine him under torture. As it is, which of his statements will they use, may I ask: his first or his second? And which is true: the statement that I committed the murder or the statement that I did not?