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§§ 57—62. I must tell the jury, by the way, of an atrocious trick which was played me to my great disadvantage in the former action. At the trial itself, the deposition on which I mainly relied proved to be missing. I have since learnt that it was stolen by Stephanus while the suit was still before the arbitrator. I call witnesses to prove this: they take an oath of disclaimer. —I thought as much.—To prove they are perjured, I now produce a challenge (duly attested by witnesses) calling on Stephanus to allow his slave to be tortured as to the abstraction of the document; my witnesses depose he refused the challenge. Now, do the jury suppose that one who thus perpetrated a theft without any personal provocation, would have had the slightest hesitation in giving false evidence in his own interests and at the special instance of another? 57 ἐξεπλάγην The form -επλάγην is post-Homeric and is used in compounds with the sense ‘strike with terror or amazement’ (Veitch, Gk Vbs, s. v. πλήσσω). For the simple verb, ἐπλήγην is used, as in the first line of the next section, but only in the sense of ‘receiving a blow from.’ ἀποδυράμενος τὰ πλεῖστα πρὸς ὑμᾶς ‘by unburdening to you all that I can of my past sorrows.’ Hdt. II 141 πρὸς τὤγαλμα ἀποδύρεσθαι οἶα κινδυνεύει παθέειν. Or. 55 § 24; 60 § 37; Plat. Rep. 606 A. ρ̀ᾴων ἔσομαι ‘I shall feel relieved’ or (to translate it still more closely) ‘I shall feel easier.’ For this use of ῥᾴων (εὐθυμότερος, Hesychius), cf. Eur. Ion 875 στέρνων ἀπονησαμένη ῥᾴων ἔσομαι. Herc. Fur. 1407 φίλτρον τοῦτ᾽ ἔχων ῥᾴων ἔσει.
Select Private Orations of Demosthenes, Part II. J. E. Sandys, Litt. D., and F. A. Paley, M.A., LL.D. 1910. Cambridge University Press.
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