I knew, men of the jury, that I should find the whole contest centring about the deposition inserted in the record, and that it would be regarding the truth or falsehood of this that you would cast your votes, and I therefore determined that the first step for me to take was to offer Aphobus a challenge. What, then, did I do? I offered to surrender to him for examination by torture a slave who knew how to read and write, and who had been present when Aphobus made the admission in question, and who wrote down the statement of the witness. This man had been ordered by me not to use any fraud or trickery, nor to write down some and suppress others of the statements made by the plaintiff regarding the matters at issue, but simply to write the absolute truth, and what Aphobus actually said.
