A Cultural History of Law in Antiquity by Julen Etxabe;

Author:Julen Etxabe;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK

FIGURE 5.4 Inscribed jurors’ ballots, fourth century B.C. One ballot has a solid axle, the other a hollow axle. Source: American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

ARGUMENTS BASED ON OATHS AND TORTURE

To this Demosthenes added a further challenge, to have his own mother swear an oath regarding the manumission (29.26). This form of oath-challenge was the strongest way for the statements of a woman to come forward, since women could not appear as witnesses in court. Because women exercised few political rights in Athens, they also did not witness as many events as women in other cultures might. Indeed, Athenians must also have been loath to subject the women of their families to public scrutiny by having them swear such oaths. But in this case, the challenge was made in what was essentially a family squabble, since Aphobus was a cousin of Demosthenes (and was supposed to have married Demosthenes’ mother according to the wishes of Demosthenes’ deceased father). Demosthenes’ mention of her is brief and to the point. He refers to the various challenges to torture slaves and to have his mother swear an oath to support his case as “just measures” (dikaia). They are the “greatest tests” (megistoi elenchoi) of what has been testified to by his witnesses (29.27). Clearly he gives them a greater role here than he had in his first speeches against Aphobus. The suit for false testimony has apparently not been preceded by a public arbitration, however, so after Aphobus introduces testimony from witnesses like Onetor and Timocrates, who give testimony regarding the monies of the guardianship, Demosthenes excuses himself for not having prepared witnesses to deal with them (29.28).

His response to his lack of preparation is fascinating. After reminding the judges that he has already won his case on these matters against Aphobus, he restates his case and says in his own voice what was in the documents that had been read aloud by the court secretary in the original case. He begins with his charge (enklêma) and goes on with the testimony that has become the basis for the suit for false testimony (29.31–2). About several parts of his father’s legacy, however, Demosthenes does have testimony at hand, so he goes on presenting his case in the normal order, outlining the events and then backing up his narrative step by step with the reading of laws and testimony (29.33–9). But later he returns to his method of stating in his own voice the substance of what is normally the stuff of documentary evidence. At the original arbitration, when Aphobus was being insistent on his challenge to torture Milyas (cf. 29.14, 39), Demosthenes formulated a complicated counter-challenge:

For I, in my desire to refute him in every particular, and in my attempt to make clear to you his tricks and his villainies, asked him how large the sum was regarding which he demanded to examine Milyas, as one “who had knowledge of the facts.” To this he stated falsely, that it was in regard to everything.

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