[23]
As it was, they could not induce their
friends, who were more honest men than themselves, to bear witness to the
payment of the money, and they thought that, if they produced other witnesses,
not related to them, you would not believe them. Again, if they said the payment
had been made all at once, they knew that we should demand for examination by
torture the slaves who had brought the money. These, if the payment had not been
made, they would have refused to give up, and so they would have been convicted
of fraud. But if they maintained that they had paid the money without witnesses
in the manner alleged, they thought to escape detection.
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