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What witness, he will ask, testifies that I have taken bribes? A brilliant argument! Facts, Aeschines, the most credible of all witnesses. You cannot find fault with facts, and say that they are what they are in deference to somebody, or to oblige somebody. They are what your treachery and perversion have made them, and such they appear on examination. But I have another witness besides the facts. You shall this very moment give evidence against yourself. Come here: stand up and answer me!—Nothing to say? You cannot plead inexperience. You, who take up a new prosecution as easily as you study a new play, and convict your man without witnesses and under a time-limit, you must be an uncommonly clever speaker!Demosthenes alludes to Aeschines’ former profession of actor and also to some recent trial in which Aeschines had been engaged (possibly the action against Timarchus: see Introd. pp. 234-5), when, owing to congestion in the law courts, the time allotted to each speaker was cut down to a minimum. But the matter is obscure.