25
This, too, they might properly have stated, assuming that he really tendered the challenge.
25
if he declared that the document was not a copy of the will of Pasio
26
Stop right there. There is not a person in the world, I presume, who would have proceeded to give this testimony, unless he had been present when my father drew up the will. Instead, he would have said at once, How do we know if there is any will of Pasio’s?—and he would have demanded that Phormio write, as in the beginning of the challenge: If I declared that the document was not a copy of the will which Phormio stated that Pasio had left,—not of the will of Pasio. For this was to testify that there was a will (which was their intention), the other that Phormio said that there was. And, I take it, there is a world of difference between a thing’s being so, and Phormio’s saying that it is.
27
So, in order that you may know how many and how important objects were to be secured by the fabrication of the will, listen for a moment. The first, men of Athens, was this, that Phormio should escape paying the penalty for corrupting one whom it is not proper for me to name, but whom you know of yourselves, even if I do not name herThis assumption of reluctance to speak of his mother is in glaring contrast with the gross accusation made against her later in the speech.; next, that he might get possession of my father’s property which was in my mother’s keeping; and in addition to this, that he might become master of everything else which belonged to us. That this is so, you will be convinced when you hear the will. For it will be found, not like that of a father writing in the interest of his sons, but like that of a slave who has shamefully misused what belonged to his master, and who is seeking how he may escape punishment.
28
(To the clerk.) Read them the will itself, to which these men have deposed along with the challenge; and do you mark well what I say.
28
The Will
