[40]
Surely Conon, a man of that sort, is not to be
believed on oath; far from it indeed. No; the man who would not swear by any
object which your custom does not recognize even an oath which he intended to
observe, and would not even think of doing so by the lives of his children, but
would suffer anything rather than that; and who, if forced to swear, will take
only a customary oath, imprecating destruction upon himself, his race, and his
house, is more to be believed than one who swears by his children or is ready to
pass through fire.1 I, then, who on every account am more worthy to be
believed than you, Conon, offered to
take the oath here cited,2 not that through readiness to do anything
whatsoever I might avoid paying the penalty for crimes which I had committed, as
is the case with you, but in the interest of truth, and in order that I might
not be subjected to further outrage, and as one who will not allow his case to
be lost through your perjury.Read the
challenge.“
Challenge
”
1 The speaker is plainly contrasting his own caution in taking an oath with the recklessness shown by the defendant, but the difficulty of the passage is only partially removed by the transposition mentioned in the critical note. As to the concluding phrase, it is doubtful if an ordeal by fire is alluded to, although suggestive parallels are found in Soph. Ant. 264 and Aristoph. Lys.133
2 Cited, that is, in the following challenge.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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