8
What reply does he mean to make to me? He was fully aware that once the slaves were examined under torture his mother was doomed; and he thought that her life depended upon the avoiding of such an examination, as he and his companions imagined that the truth would in that event be lost to sight. How, then, is he going to remain true to his oath as defendant,A curiously loose expression. The oath taken by both parties in cases of murder was always a διωμοσία, (cf. Antiph. 1.28), never as here, an ἀντωμοσία if he claims to be in full possession of the facts after refusing to make certain of them by accepting my offer of a perfectly impartial investigation of the matter by torture?
9
In the first place, I was ready to torture the defendants’ slaves, who knew that this woman, my opponents’ mother, had planned to poison our father on a previous occasion as well, that our father had caught her in the act, and that she had admitted everything— save that it was not to kill him, but to restore his love that she alleged herself to be giving him the potion.
