[176]
To prove
the truth of these statements, in the first place I will give evidence myself,
having duly written down my deposition and incurred legal responsibility1; and I will then call the other ambassadors in turn, and
compel them either to testify, or to take oath that they are unable to testify.
If they take the oath, I shall easily convict them of perjury.“
Deposition
”
1 It should be remembered that all evidence in the Athenian courts was deposited in writing before the trial. There was no verbal evidence and no cross-examination. By attesting under oath the truth of his deposition, the witness of course made himself answerable to a charge of perjury.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.