56
Deinias, men of the jury, is very like Stephanus, is he not?—Deinias, who on account of his relationship, refuses to testify against the defendant even to what is true, and on behalf of his daughter and his daughter’s children, and me, his son-in-law!We must assume that Deinias, when called upon, refused to swear to the deposition which was read (whether the deposition given in the text is authentic or not cannot be determined with certainty). He must, therefore, have taken the oath of disclaimer (ἐξωμοσία), although this is not stated in the text. Apollodorus asserts that Deinias took this course for fear that by swearing to the deposition he would work harm to his kinsman Stephanus. We must be content to confess our ignorance of his reasons. Not so Stephanus here. He did not hesitate to give false testimony against us; even respect for his own mother, if for no one else, did not keep him from bringing the extremest poverty upon those who through her were his relatives.
57
I wish now, men of the jury, to tell you of the most a outrageous thing which has been done to me,—a thing which more than anything else overwhelmed me with dismay in the course of the trial; for you will thus see even more clearly the fellow’s baseness, and I, by venting before you my grief for what has happened, shall find, as it were, a sort of relief. The deposition, which I thought was there, and which afforded the strongest evidence in support of my case, I did not find in the box.
