the torture challenge

Since now he does not accept the challenge, saying that he would not rest his case on the testimony of tortured slaves, please take this letter, which Philip sent.

If the slaves testify that I ever slept away from these messmates of mine, spare me not, fellow citizens, but rise up and kill me.

We present also our slaves and offer them for torture;

I proposed that he should deliver up for the torture the women-servants, Thratta and Coccalinê, who remained loyally with Neaera when she came to Stephanus from Megara, and those whom she purchased subsequently, while living with him, Xennis and Drosis;

Hippocrates, son of Hippocrates, of Probalinthus, Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes, of Paeania, Diophanes, son of Diophanes, of Alopecê, Deinomenes, son of Archelaus, of Cydathenaeum, Deinias, son of Phormides, of Cydantidae, and Lysimachus, son of Lysippus, of Aegilia, depose that they were present in the agora, when Apollodorus challenged Stephanus, demanding that he deliver up the women-servants …

Does it not, then, appear to you, men of the jury, that a verdict has been given by Stephanus here himself that Neaera is guilty under the indictment which I preferred against her, and that I have told you the truth and produced testimony which is true, whereas whatever Stephanus may say to you will be wholly false, and he will himself prove that he has no sound argument to advance, inasmuch as he …

I was even willing at my own risk to let the proof rest on the torture of his male and female slaves, but the defendant, realizing his guilt, rejected the offer instead of accepting it.

But if he claims that they are false, why has he not handed over his male and female slaves?

But it was just these persons whom Leocrates refused to hand over, though they were his and no one else’s.