not have induced Demosthenes to throw Phormio overboard and to support Apollodorus by writing the first speech against Stephanus. On this hypothesis it may be presumed that Apollodorus, having lost his lawsuit against Phormio owing to the powerful advocacy of Demosthenes, and being almost crushed by the consequences of his defeat, resorted to Demosthenes in the hope of recovering part at least of his resources, and proposed to run the risk of bringing forward his motion on the Theoric fund, on condition that the orator wrote him a speech against the obnoxious witness Stephanus.

A suggestive letter from Dr F. Blass of Königsberg (the author of several important works on Greek Oratory) has recently reached me, supporting this hypothesis and also shewing that the style of the first speech against Stephanus, apart from its general resemblance to that of Demosthenes1, coincides with it in a hitherto unnoticed peculiarity, that under certain limitations the orator generally avoids the juxtaposition of three or more short syllables, the exceptions being for the most part cases where the three syllables fall within the compass of a single word2. To examine the minute criterion here proposed is beyond my present purpose; it is sufficient to state (as my learned correspondent would obviously acknowledge), that while its absence may suggest the spuriousness of any given oration, its presence does not prove its genuineness; and it is enough to admit that the testimony of Harpocration is in favour of the Demosthenic authorship of the first speech (though the value of that testimony is impaired by his attributing the second speech to the same author); and that the parallelism of § 77 to a passage in the Pantaenetus already noticed is on the whole more easily explained by ascribing the first speech to Demosthenes than by any other hypothesis.

1 Sigg, Apoll. p. 415–432. 2 See p. 7 of his dissertation on the Letters ascribed to Demosthenes (just published, Oct.

1875).

3 See quotations in notes on Or. 45 §§ 1, 15, 63, 66, 74, 80, 84. 4 Cf. Or. 46 §§ 7, 11, 20.

INTRODUCTION TO

OR. LIII

ΠΡΟΣ ΝΙΚΟΣΤΡΑΤΟΝ

ΠΕΡΙ ΑΝΔΡΑΠΟΔΩΝ ΑΠΟΓΡΑΦΗΣ

ΑΡΕΘΟΥΣΙΟΥ.

if

In this speech Apollodorus, the litigious son of Pasion, appears in support of a lawsuit arising out of an information laid against one Arethusius, for refusing to pay a fine due to the public chest. According to Athenian law, a state-debtor concealed his effects, any citizen who discovered the fact was at liberty to draw up, and lay before the proper magistrate, a written statement containing an inventory or specification of the goods in question. The schedule thus drawn up was called an apographê, and this name was also given to the legal process in support of it. The informant, in the event of his making good his case, was entitled to the reward of three-fourths of the valuation (§ 2); if he failed, he was fined a thousand drachmae (about £40), and suffered a partial disfranchisement which prevented his appearing again as a prosecutor in a public cause (§ 1).

In the present instance, Apollodorus has handed in a specification in which two slaves are stated to be the property of Arethusius, and therefore liable to confiscation as a partial payment of his debt to the public treasury. Hereupon, a brother of Arethusius, named Nicostratus, puts in a claim to the slaves, and in the speech before us Apollodorus has to shew that the claim is false and that

the slaves are really the property of Arethusius. To prove this he calls evidence in §§ 19-21,, and this is the only portion of the speech which is really relevant to the issue before the court, while the greater part up to this point is devoted to a narrative of the relations between Apollodorus and the two brothers, the object of which is to shew that the former had been most ungratefully treated by the latter, especially by Nicostratus, and that he was therefore, according to the Athenian notion, fully justified in revenging himself for his private wrongs by supporting a public information against his opponent. To prove the purity of his motives and to ingratiate himself with the court, he waives at the very outset his claim to the reward to which the informant in such cases is legally entitled.

In three of the speeches of Lysias, the promoter of an άπоурaþý appears as a plaintiff; in the present speech we should probably consider Apollodorus as defendant and Nicostratus as plaintiff. In the three former cases, the speaker was not in possession of the effects disputed; in the latter he apparently was; his opponent Nicostratus puts in a claim against him, and the speech before us will, in that case, be a speech for the defence'.

Apollodorus states that Nicostratus was his neighbour in the country and formerly his trusted friend, that they had done kindly services for one another, and that in particular he had lent to Nicostratus, free of interest, a sum which he was himself compelled to raise on the security of part of his property. So far from being grateful, the borrower at once laid a plot to escape payment of his debt, made common cause with the opponents of Apollodorus, and induced a third party (one Lycidas) to bring against him a suit demanding that certain property should

1 Caillemer, s.v. Apographè, in Daremberg and Saglio's Dict.

des Antiq. Lysias pro milite, de bonis Aristoph., c. Philocr.

be produced in court. Among those who were entered as witnesses to the delivery of the summons requiring him to appear in court, was Arethusius, a brother of Nicostratus, as above mentioned. The summons, it is alleged, was never served, consequently Apollodorus did not appear, and judgment went against him by default. Subsequently, Apollodorus prosecuted Arethusius for fraudulent citation (ψευδοκλητείας γραφή), which was regarded by Athenian law as a criminal offence, while on the contrary a witness in the cause itself as distinguished from one who attested a summons, was, if he gave false evidence, only liable to a civil action'. Before the case came on, Arethusius committed several acts of outrage against Apollodorus, laid waste his orchard and violently assaulted him, and when the case for fraudulent citation, and apparently for the other criminal acts, was brought before the jury, Apollodorus, under these aggravating circumstances, obtained a verdict against Arethusius with the greatest ease. Indeed, it was only owing to the entreaties of his brothers, with the acquiescence of the prosecutor, who was unwilling to face the odium. which would ensue, that Arethusius escaped the penalty of death, and had inflicted on him a fine of one talent (£243), for the payment of which his brothers became jointly responsible. Arethusius pleaded poverty and refused to pay; thereupon Apollodorus took the legal steps required (as above described) for the confiscation of his property, and in his specification claimed for the state, among other effects, two slaves as a partial security for the payment of the fine. Nicostratus resists this claim as

1 Harpocration, quoted on p. 154, inaccurately uses the (possibly generic) term díkn, instead of γραφή, with reference to ψευ δοκλητεία.

2 Boeckh, Public Economy, ed. 2, 1. p. 502, note g, while

noticing that other criminal acts are involved, considers that the present passage proves that the punishment of death might be inflicted in a case of yeudoKλnTela, but this seems scarcely probable,

regards the slaves in question and claims them as his own property, though even in that case, as the speaker points out, they should be confiscated, since Nicostratus had guaranteed the payment of the fine and had failed to make good his guarantee. In §§ 22-25 Apollodorus describes the unsuccessful attempt of his opponents to entrap him into accepting a legal challenge, which would have committed him to a virtual admission that the slaves were private property; and in $$ 19-21 calls evidence to prove, that the person recognized as the responsible owner of the slaves was Arethusius, and not the present claimant Nicostratus.

Passing from the general contents of the speech as above sketched, we may turn to a brief consideration of its literary style and special peculiarities. We are at once struck by the disproportionate space of twenty sections devoted to purely preliminary details, as contrasted with the short compass within which lies the real gist of the case. The long account of the reasons prompting the speaker to seek for revenge, is unlike the manner of Demosthenes, and a certain feebleness and diffuseness may be noted in the narrative immediately following the exordium. Among minor details may be observed a tendency to add unnecessary and superfluous clauses, defining more clearly what has just gone before'. Again, we find needless repetitions within the compass of a single sentence; further, we have a certain clumsiness in the

1 e.g. not content with 'Apeθουσίου, οπερ ἐγέγραπτο εἶναι in § 2, the writer in § 10 has the words, 'Αρεθούσιος οὗ τἀνδράποδ ̓ ἐστὶ ταῦτα ἃ νῦν ἀπογέγραπται, again in § 14 'Αρες θούσιος οὑπέρ ἐστι τἀνδράποδα TaûTα, and similarly in § 19. The words in $ 7 ἐδεῖτό μου βοηθῆσαι αὐτῷ ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν τῷ

ἔμπροσθεν χρόνῳ ἢν περὶ αὐτὸν ἀληθινὸς φίλος, are partially repeated in § 8 and § 12. Again in § 24, ràs Baσávovs is unnecessarily followed by the closer definition, ὅτι εἴποιεν οἱ ἄνθρωποι. (Cf. A. Schaefer, u. s., p. 187— 190; Lortzing, Apoll. p. 30 etc.) Θ. Β. § 4, οἰκείως διεκείμεθα... οἰκείως διεκείμην.

2