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on this understanding they gave security for producing him the morrow, and departed and went their way. On the following day, in view of the present demurrer and the suit itself, I decided that I ought to appear there with witnesses, in order that I might know the man who was to vindicate him, and what plea he would urge for his discharge. Now, as regards the condition on which security was taken for his release, neither a brother nor anyone else appeared; but a woman asserted that he was her slave, in dispute of Nicomedes’ claim, and she said that she would not allow him to be arrested.
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Well, to recount all that was spoken in that place would make this a long story; but with such violence did his supporters and the man himself behave that, while Nicomedes on his part, and the woman on hers, were both willing to let him go if somebody should either vindicate him as a freeman or arrest him on the claim of owning him as a slave, they did nothing of the sort, but carried him off and departed. Now, to prove that security was taken for him on that condition the day before, and that they then carried him off with them by force, I will produce to you witnesses. So please stop the water.
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Witnesses It is easy, then, to make sure that even Pancleon himself, far from regarding himself as a Plataean, does not suppose himself to be even a freeman. For when a man has chosen, on being carried off by force, to make his own associates liable to action for assault rather than to be vindicated as a freeman by legal process and to get damages from those who were arresting him, nobody can have difficulty in perceiving that he was so conscious of his being a slave that he was afraid to provide guarantors and to face a trial concerning his civil status.
