Witnesses

for a confession made during torture is null, if it be not afterwards confirmed by an oath;

Finally, the credibility of a witness is null, when the question relates to the words of a criminal;

To determine exactly the credibility of a witness, and the force of evidence, is an important point in every good legislation.

To prove that I am speaking the truth in this, the clerk shall read you the depositions concerning these matters.

For you look to the witnesses and give your verdict as you do, because you have believed the testimony which they have given.

As to my charge that the testimony to which they have deposed is false, they seem to me to have given proof by their own actions, and there is no need for me to produce any other witnesses than themselves.

By truth is fire.

By truth are the gods.

By truth the sun shines.

and both I and all my witnesses are well known to have maintained from the very first day what we are repeating to you now.

However, I said, there would be no difficulty in proving his monstrous accusation a lie, as there were plenty of witnesses, slave and free, young and old, in fact, over fifty in all, who knew how the drinking of the poison had been accounted for and were in complete possession of the facts and circumstances.

You do not need to be reminded, gentlemen, that the one occasion when compulsion is as absolute and as effective as is humanly possible, and when the rights of a case are ascertained thereby most surely and most certainly, arises when there is an abundance of witnesses, both slave and free, and it is possible to put pressure upon the free men by exacting an oath or word of honor, the most solemn a …

Witnesses

I have witnesses to confirm them.

I know furthermore, gentlemen of the jury, that if the witnesses were testifying against me that my presence on shipboard or at a sacrifice had been the occasion of some unholy manifestation, the prosecution would be treating that fact as supremely significant;

for according to the witnesses, it was he who was the aggressor.

and you have listened to the witnesses who were present during his drunken assault.

it was not to the blows, but to the physician, that the man’s death was due, as the witnesses state in their evidence.

The Witnesses

Now take, please, and read these two depositions, proving that my father gave me the name Mantitheus, and him the name Boeotus.

To prove that I am speaking the truth in this, I shall bring before you as witnesses those who went to school with him, and know the facts.

The Witnesses

To prove that I am speaking the truth, I will first bring forward witnesses to establish these facts.

For who among you is ignorant that witnesses are those who have no interest in the matter at issue in the suit;

But that I may not speak confusedly of all matters at once, take, please, the depositions of the neighbors.

or, if he paid no heed, and any such mischief resulted, you would have been able to avail yourself of those who were present as witnesses.

To prove that I am speaking the truth in this, I shall bring before you as witnesses those who know the facts, and circumstantial evidence, men of Athens, far stronger than any testimony.

The Witnesses

Read the depositions of the surgeon and of those who came to see me.

leading to the altar one at a time our witnesses who were present and putting them on oath;

The Witnesses

The Witnesses.

for they readily make expenditures from funds which belong to others, and so have provided themselves with a host of people who will speak in their behalf and give false testimony.

and that they have in their possession the sums of money agreed upon, you hear from the witnesses.

However, to prove that I am speaking the truth,—that our father died immediately after the settlement, that these men never brought suit against Demaretus for this money, and that he absolutely never went to sea, nor visited Bosporus, take the depositions.

Yet, although the release was thus given in the presence of numerous witnesses, and although the law manifestly absolves us, these men have come to such a pitch of shamelessness and audacity, that, when fourteen years have elapsed from the time when they gave my father a release, and twenty-two years after they had first indicted him, when my father was now dead, with whom the settlement had been …

That I offered reasonable and fitting terms to Olympiodorus has been testified to you, men of the jury, by those who were present.

To prove that I tendered him this challenge, the clerk shall read you the deposition of the persons in whose presence I tendered it.

If what I am saying is not true, why did I not proceed against the witnesses who gave this evidence instead of keeping absolute silence?

The Deposition

Now take the deposition.

To prove that these statements of mine are true, that he even now declares that the land is mortgaged for a talent, but that he laid claim to two thousand drachmae more on the house, and took the pillars down after the suit was decided, I shall bring forward witnesses who know the facts.

The Witnesses

To prove that I speak the truth in this, call, please, the witnesses who establish the facts.

that he brought suit against Evergus, and never made any charge against me,—all this, men of the jury, you hear from the witnesses.

First, now, I will produce for you the depositions substantiating what I have said, and then you shall hear the entire truth about the other aspects of the case.

Yet Phaenippus, men of the jury, opened the rooms that had been sealed and carried off much that was within, as the witnesses have testified to you, leaving behind just what he pleased;

The wrongs, therefore, which Phaenippus began to do to me beginning with the very first day after the tendering of the exchanges, you have heard, men of Athens, both from myself and from the witnesses;

The Witnesses

) Please call the witnesses.

It may well be, men of the jury, that Spudias will make no statement to meet these facts;

If they deny that they have borne witness to all the facts, ask them these questions, What stands written in the deposition?

If they declare that they have testified, one person that he lived as ward under a will, another that he served as guardian, and another that he has the will in his possession, demand of them, What will?

The Witnesses

To prove that I am speaking the truth, I shall, in regard to these matters also, bring forward as witnesses those who were present.

and, besides this, I shall bring before you as witnesses the persons who were present on the various occasions when I met the plaintiff before Lysitheides.

The Witnesses

To prove that I have told you the truth, I shall call before you witnesses to all these facts.

To prove that I am speaking the truth, (to the clerk) call, please, the witnesses to these facts.

I was ready to reckon it up item by item, while I had by me as witnesses to the expenditures the sailors and the marines and the rowers, in order that, if he disputed anything, I might refute him at once.

Since he refused to take over the ship, and the sailors were asking for money that they might buy supplies, I came up to him again, having witnesses with me, and asked whether he had come out with money with the purpose of taking over the ship from me, or not.

For after he arrived at Thasos, when I was serving for the fourth month after my term had expired, I took witnesses with me, as many of the citizens as I could and the marines and rowers, and, coming up to him in the market-place at Thasos, I bade him take over the ship from me as my successor and repay me what I had expended since the expiration of my term.

26, only two witnesses are required to a will, whether of real or personal estate.

Is uero qui in potestate heredis aut legatarii est, cuiusue heres ipse aut legatarius in potestate est, quique in eiusdem potestate est, adeo testis et libripens adhiberi potest, ut ipse quoque heres aut legatarius iure adhibeantur.

and in accordance with the civil law, their number was required to be seven (a number obtained by adding the libripens and familiae emptor to the five witnesses of the mancipation), and the whole formality of attestation and publication was required to be continuous (unitas actus), that is, to proceed from beginning to end without interruption or interposition of any other business as one act.

Witnesses

I will produce witnesses to testify, in the first place, that Cyronides entered by adoption into the family of Xenaenetus (I.

Parties, advocates, and witnesses in a court of justice are under the like protection.