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.

Is it not, then, a necessary inference that these witnesses have given false testimony, men who even up to this day dare not deliver up the woman in person, as according to their statement Theophemus offered to do, and as they testified for him?

for he does not dare to deliver up the woman, whom the witnesses have declared that he was ready to deliver up, but prefers that his brother and his brother-in-law should have to stand trial on a charge of giving false testimony, rather than that he should deliver up the woman in person, and so be well rid of his troubles in a fair and legal way, and that they should not try by arguments and entre …

It is in my opinion, men of the jury, an admirable provision of the laws that they allow another chance after a trial by means of proceedings for false testimony, in order that, if anyone by bringing forward witnesses testifying to what is false or by citing challenges which were never tendered or depositions made contrary to law, has deceived the jury, he may gain nothing by it, but the one who h …

Those witnesses who, though knowing, remain silent and indifferent, They are equal in sin to false witnesses, and also in punishment.

The worlds which are for those who commit great sins, and those which are for those who commit minor sins, are also for false witnesses.

Having summoned the witnesses at sunrise, the king shall question them after they have taken an oath.

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 …

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.

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;

I have witnesses to confirm them.

Witnesses

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.

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

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.

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

Now, to show you that my father not only made the entry in the list of the clansmen in the manner which has been testified to you, but that he gave me this name when he kept the tenth day after my birth, please take this deposition.

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

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

And furthermore, out of all your number, men of the jury, out of all the host of the rest of the Athenians, not a single other person has testified that he was present at this sale;

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.

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.

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

Since, however, he was convicted on all these points before the arbitrator, just as he is now, and proved manifestly guilty of all the charges against him, he puts into the box a false deposition, and writes at the head of it as witnesses the names of people whom I think you will know well when you hear them— Diotimus, son of Diotimus, of Icaria, Archebiades, son of Demoteles, of Halae, Chaeretimu …

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

To prove that these statements of mine are true, I shall call before you the witnesses who attest them.

He was thwarted then, and convicted in the presence of many witnesses of fraudulent action, both in the matter of the list, and in the assembly for the election of the deme’s officers, yet nevertheless he persisted in trying to force his way in, and by his intrigues to prove himself stronger than your laws.

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.

The Witnesses

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 …

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.

But I challenged him then before the witnesses who were present, and I challenge him again now before you jurymen, and I demand that he consent, and I myself do consent, to have the articles of agreement opened here in the court-room, to let you hear them, and to have them sealed up again in your presence.

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

he should have gone by himself to Androcleides, and made this protest, and gone also with many witnesses, in order that he might have many persons who were aware of the fact.

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 Deposition

Now take the deposition.

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.

To prove, in the first place, that I am speaking the truth in this, I shall bring before you the witnesses to establish these facts.

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;

And first I led them around the farm, the circuit of which was more than forty stades, and pointed out to them, and called them to witness in the presence of Phaenippus, that there were no mortgage-pillars on the farm, and I bade Phaenippus, if he said there were, to declare it at once and point them out to me, for fear some debt existing against the property might be brought to light later on.

For regarding the house, if he maintains that Polyeuctus was induced by me to order that mortgage-pillars be set up for the thousand drachmae, yet surely, Spudias, I did not use my influence to induce the witnesses to give false testimony in my interest,—witnesses who were present when he betrothed to me his daughter, who knew that I received less than the entire marriage portion, who heard him wh …

In the first place, then, I shall bring before you as witnesses those who were present when Polyeuctus betrothed his daughter to me with a portion of forty minae;

But first, that you may be fully assured that matters are as I have stated, hear the witnesses.

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?

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.

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

There is no situation harder to deal with, men of the jury, than when a man possessing both reputation and ability to speak is audacious enough to lie and is well provided with 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.

and to prove that he belonged to Arethusius, I shall bring before you witnesses who know the fact.

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.

When, then, on our homeward voyage we were in Tenedos, and Lucinus, despite the orders given him by Timomachus, was furnishing no money for sustenance to the sailors (he said he had none, but should get some from Mytilenê), and the men had nothing with which to buy provisions, and without food could not have continued rowing, again taking some of our citizens as witnesses I approached the defendan …

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.

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.

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.

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

Witnesses

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