13
If it were not admitted to be our private property, we should perhaps be guilty of this wrongdoing, if we had fenced off a piece of public land; but as it is, they do not dispute this, and on the land there are trees planted, vines and figs. Yet who would think of planting these in a watercourse? Nobody, surely. Again, who would think of burying his own ancestors there? No one, I think, would do this either.
14
Well, both these things have been done. For not only were the trees planted before my father built the wall, but the tombs are old, and were built before we acquired the property. Yet, since this is the case, what stronger argument could there be, men of Athens? The facts afford manifest proof.
14
(To the clerk.) Now please take all these depositions, and read them.
14
The Depositions
15
Men of Athens, you hear the depositions. Do they not appear to you to testify expressly that it is a place full of trees, and that it contains some tombs and other things which are to be found in most private pieces of land? Do they not prove also that the land was walled in during the lifetime of their father without opposition being made by these men or any other of the neighbors?
