that if any one charged them they could transfer the charge to their successor. They have evidently cleared me, and if they have lied have become participants in the crime.
- Again, supposing I had squared matters with them, how could I have bribed all who are present or the neighbors, who not only know about each other's public affairs, but also about those we try to keep a secret from all. Some of these are my friends, but others are not on good terms with me. 19. These my accuser should have brought as witnesses, and not made the charge at random. He says I stood near while my slaves cut out the stump and the driver put the stump in his cart and went away with the wood. 20. Then was the time, Nicomachus, for you to summon the witnesses who were there and show up the crime. You would have left me no escape, and if I were hated by you, you would have had revenge in this way. If you did it from patriotism, having (21) exposed me in this manner, you would not seem to be an informer, and if you desired gain, in this way could you have obtained most. As the crime was clear I should have had no means of safety if I did not bribe you. As you did none of these things, you seem, by your assertions, to be destroying me, having said in the prosecution that no one wishes to testify on account of my influence and wealth. 22. If, when you said you saw me cutting down the olive, you had brought the nine archons or some one else from the Areopagus, no further witnesses would be needed. For thus the very men who judge the case would have known that you spoke the truth. 23. I am placed in a very unfair position. If he had produced witnesses he would have expected you to believe them, but since he has none he thinks to turn this to my disadvantage. And I do not wonder at this. For in a case like this he would not lack witnesses and arguments at the same time. But I do not think you hold the same opinion he does. 24. You know that there were in the country, in other places of mine, many olives and burnt stumps which, if I had set my heart, upon it, it would have been much easier for me to injure, cut down and encroach upon, as my crime was likely to be less apparent on account of the number of trees. 25. Thus I make them as much account as my country and other possessions, running the risk I do of losing both. I shall bring before you as witnesses those men who act as inspectors every month, and send collectors every year. No one of these men ever fined me for farming the ground about the olive. 26. It is very probable that taking such care about the small fines I should pay no attention whatever to my bodily safety. Am I shown to take such care of the many olives, against which I might have committed the trespass, but called to account for the very olive which it was not possible to dig up without detection? 27. Was it not easier for me, (members of the) Boule, to break the laws during the Democracy than under the Thirty? I do not say this because I had any influence at that time or as being now in a position of distrust, but it was easier for any one who wished to do wrong then than it is now. I am not charged with doing this or any other wrong during that time. 28. Unless I of all men had been most ill-disposed to myself, how could I have attempted to cut an olive from a piece of ground on which there was not a single tree except, as he says, the stump of one olive, about which the road ran on both sides, with neighbors dwelling on all sides, and perfectly open to the view of all?
Would any one have been so utterly reckless, such, being the case, as to have done such a deed? 29. I think it strange that those men appointed by the city to look after the sacred olives never fined me for encroaching upon the trees nor brought me to trial on the charge of cutting them down, but that this man, who is not a neighbor, nor an inspector, nor old enough to know about such things, has entered me on the indictment as having destroyed an olive.
HKB