Isocrates I

Against Euthynus, Without Witnesses

21. AGAINST EUTHYNUS, WITHOUT WITNESSES introduction This speech, which was composed a short time after the tyranny of the Thirty in 404/403, illustrates how tangled personal relationships became at that time. It was written for a man named Nicias, who attempted to liquidate and hide his assets from the tyranny. He gave some of his money (he says it was three talents) to a relative named Euthynus for safekeeping, but Euthynus allegedly failed to return onethird of it later. The suit Nicias has brought is thus a parakatathēkēs dikē, a suit to recover a deposit, and it shares many of the same lines of argumentation as 17, which also concerns a deposit. The orator Lysias is said to have written a speech on behalf of Euthynus in response to Nicias. The words ‘‘without witnesses’’ were already added to the title in antiquity. The speech lacks the support of any witness testimony, which is quite unusual. The Athenians attempted to have almost everything witnessed that might ever be the subject of a lawsuit, whether marriages, commercial transactions, or acts of violence. (According to 17.2 and 53, deposits with bankers were an exception.) In this case, the haste and confusion of events may have prevented Nicias from providing witnesses. A result of the absence of witnesses is that the speech relies heavily on arguments from probability, and it ends abruptly, without a proper conclusion. It is possible, however, that the speech was one of a number of speeches presented by friends of Nicias in his support; one of the other speeches may have incorporated all the witness testimony. The speech was delivered by a synēgoros, a co-pleader who seems to have been closely familiar with both Nicias and Euthynus. In gen- eral, Athenians pleaded their own cases in court, but such co-pleaders sometimes speak in place of or in addition to the litigant. From what we know of Isocrates’ diffidence regarding the delivery of speeches, it seems unlikely that Isocrates himself is the synēgoros here. 21. against euthynus, without witnesses [1] I lack no excuse for speaking on behalf of Nicias here: he is my friend, he is in need, he has been wronged and he is unable to speak for himself,1 so I am compelled for all of these reasons to speak for him. [2] Now, I shall relate to you as briefly as I can the origin of his dealings with Euthynus. During the rule of the Thirty, his enemies were trying to remove his name from the list of citizens and inscribe it on Lysander’s list.2 In fear of these developments, Nicias here leased out his property, sent his slaves out of the country, brought his furniture to me, gave three talents of silver to Euthynus for safekeeping, and went to live in the country. [3] A little later, he wished to sail away3 and asked for his money back; Euthynus returned two talents but denied having the third. Since Nicias could do nothing else at that time, he took his complaints to his friends and told them how he had been treated. Nevertheless, you must understand that he held this man in such high esteem and so feared the political situation that he is the sort of person who would have preferred to keep silent and be out a bit rather than appear now to be making an accusation when he had lost nothing. [4] This, then, is what happened. The case puts us at a loss: no one—no free person, no slave—was present when Nicias deposited the money or when it was returned, so it is impossible to learn about 21. against euthynus, without witnesses 129 1 Isocrates gives no indication why Nicias is unable to speak for himself, but it adds to Nicias’ credibility as an innocent that he can be said to be so incapable of functioning in the public sphere. It ties in with the argument he uses in 5, below. 2 Lysander was the Spartan general who had captured Athens. Xen., Hellenica 2.3.17–19, and Ath. Pol. 37, both of which report the events of this period, do not mention a list of proscribed individuals. They were presumably simply those left off the reduced list of 3,000 ‘‘citizens,’’ which the Thirty prepared. 3 I.e., to go into exile, as did many of the opponents and victims of the Thirty. [3.21.76.0] Project...