9
Well now, gentlemen, although I might speak at length on what had previously occurred, I think these remarks will suffice: but when I took over the plot, after an interval of five days I let it out to Callistratus, in the archonship of Pythodorus: 404-403 B.C.
10
he cultivated it for two years, and had taken over no olive-tree, either private or sacred, nor any olive-stump. In the third year it was worked by Demetrius here for a twelvemonth; in the fourth I let it to Alcias, a freedman of Antisthenes, who is dead. After that Proteas too hired it in the same state during three years. Now, please step this way, witnesses.
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Witnesses Well now, since the termination of that time I have cultivated it myself. My accuser says that in the archonship of Souniades397-396 B.C. an olive-stump was uprooted by me. And the previous cultivators, who rented it from me for a number of years, have testified to you that there was no stump on the plot. I ask you, how could one convict the accuser more patently of lying? For it is not possible that the cultivator who came after cleared away what was not there before.
