Against Timotheus : Keeping to the Point in a Suit for Damage

This chapter deals with the legal relevance of the arguments put forward by Apollodoros, the son of Pasion, in his speech against Timotheos, the general. The latter owed Apollodoros some money that Pasion, while still alive, had lent him. Frequent reference is made to values of Greek morality throughout the speech. At first sight, one might be tempted to believe that such values were unrelated to law and consequently that litigants in Athenian lawcourts were allowed to base their speeches on extra-legal arguments. This chapter aims to demonstrate that, by virtue of the interdependence between morality and law, even the arguments relying on the moral and cultural Athenian background cannot be considered as extra-legal. After clarifying that Apollodoros sued Timotheos for damages and attempting to reconstruct the text of the plaint, the chapter proceeds to scrutinise the most controversial points of the speech to show that values such as reciprocity, trust or reverence towards the gods were interwoven with, and reflected by, Athenian laws. As a result, any argument put forward by the speaker was to be considered legally relevant if it aimed to prove that the defendant had violated the specific law quoted in the plaint and his behaviour conflicted with the ēthos of the city and its laws.