6
Further, he may not in fact have been murdered for his clothing; he may have seen others engaged in some quite different outrage and have been killed by them to prevent his giving information of the crime; who knows? Again, were not those who hated him almost as much as I did—and there were a great many—more likely to have murdered him than I? It was plain to them that suspicion would fall on me; while I knew very well that I should bear the blame for them.
7
Why, moreover, should the evidence of the attendant be allowed any weight? In his terror at the peril in which he stood, there was no likelihood of his recognizing the murderers. On the other hand, it was likely enough that he would obediently confirm any suggestions made by his masters.ἀναγιγνώσκειν in the sense of persuade, which it must bear here, is found elsewhere only in Herodotus. Masters implies that the passers-by who found the slave were members of the dead man’s own family, although this fact is nowhere explicitly mentioned by the prosecution. We distrust the evidence of slaves in general, or we should not torture them; so what justification have you for putting me to death on the evidence of this one?
8
Further, whoever allows probability the force of fact when it testifies to my guilt must on the same principle bear the following in mind as evidence of my innocence; it was more likely that, with an eye to carrying out my plot in safety, I should take the precaution of not being present at the scene of the crime than that the slave should recognize me distinctly just as his throat was being cut.
