According to the accepted view, women were not competent witnesses in Athenian courts. This conclusion is not based upon any distinct statement in our authorities, but is a matter of inference from the absence of explicit reference to the testimony of women in any of the extant cases.1 There is, however, a passage in a speech attributed to Demosthenes which can be satisfactorily explained only by assuming that, in cases of homicide, women, and children as well, regularly appeared in the capacity of witnesses. The plaintiff in the case against Euergus and Mnesibulus (xlvii) for perjury gives a lively account of an assault upon a freedwoman in his service. The defendants, together with their kinsman Theophemus, visited the plaintiff's house during his absence for the purpose of making a seizure of property to satisfy a judgment which Theophemus had obtained. Their proceedings were so violent that the slaves took refuge in their own separate apartments and by their shouts alarmed the neighborhood. Agnophilus, who happened to be passing, approached the house, but discreetly refrained from entering in the absence of the owner. In the meantime the defendants and their companion had effected an entrance into the women's apartments, where they found the mistress of the house, the children, and an aged freedwoman who lived with them. While defending her master's property the old servant was so cruelly maltreated by Theophemus and Euergus that she afterward died. After her death the plaintiff consulted the expounders (6 jyTat'), who instructed him regarding the procedure to be followed in such cases for the purpose of purification. At his request they advised him further with reference to legal proceedings against the perpetrators of the outrage. For two reasons they did not deem it advisable for