| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 34.24 | Dem. 34.33 (Greek) | >>Dem. 34.42 |
34.30For you all know, I fancy, that men borrow with few witnesses, but, when they pay, they take care to have many witnesses present, that they may win a reputation for honesty in business dealings. But in your case, when you were paying back both the debt and the interest on both voyages, though you had used the money for the outward voyage only, and were adding thirteen minae besides, should you not have caused many witnesses to be present? Had you done so, there is not a single merchant who would have been held in higher esteem than you.
34.31But, as it was, instead of securing many witnesses to these acts you did everything you could that none should know, as though you were committing some crime! Again, had you been making payment to me, your creditor, in person, there would have been no need of witnesses, for you would have taken back the agreement and so got rid of the obligation; whereas in making payment, not to me, but to another on my behalf, and not at Athens but in Bosporus , when your agreement was deposited at Athens and with me, and when the man to whom you paid the money was mortal and about to undertake a voyage over such a stretch of sea, you called no one as a witness, whether slave or freeman.
34.32Yes, he says, for the agreement bade me pay the cash to the shipowner. note But it did not prevent you from summoning witnesses, or from delivering the letters! The parties here present note drew up two agreements with you in the matter of the loan, showing that they greatly distrusted you, but you assert that without a single witness you paid the gold to the shipowner, although you well know that an agreement against yourself was deposited at Athens with my colleague here!
Bosporus , but paid the cash to the shipowner, why do you still go on talking about the ship? For you have had no share in the risk, since you put nothing on board.
34.34At first, men of Athens , he seized upon this excuse, pretending that he had shipped the goods; but when he saw that the falsity of this claim was likely to be exposed in many ways,—by the entry filed with the harbor-masters in Bosporus , and by the testimony of those who were staying in the port at the same time—then he changes his tack, enters into a conspiracy with Lampis, and declares that he has paid him the money in cash,
34.35finding a support for his plea in the fact that the agreement so ordered, and thinking that we should not find it easy to get at the truth regarding all that they did by themselves alone. And Lampis declares that all that he said to me note before he was corrupted by this Phormio was spoken when he was out of his head; but as soon as he got a share of my money, he declares that he is in his right mind and remembers everything perfectly!
Bosporus that whoever wished to transport grain to Athens for the Athenian market might export it free of duty, Lampis, who was at the time in Bosporus , obtained permission to export grain and the exemption from duty in the name of the state; and having loaded a large vessel with grain, carried it to Acanthus note and there disposed of it,—he, who had made himself the partner of Phormio here with our money.
34.37And he did this, men of the jury, though he was resident at Athens, and had a wife and children here, and although the laws have prescribed the severest penalties if anyone resident at Athens should transport grain to any other place than to the Athenian market; besides, he did this at a critical time, when those of you who dwelt in the city were having their barley-meal measured out to them in the Odeum, note and those who dwelt in Peiraeus were receiving their loaves at an obol each in the dockyard and in the long-porch, note having their meal measured out to them a gallon note at a time, and being nearly trampled to death.
34.33He says that the agreement bids him pay back the money, “when the ship reaches port in safety.” Yes, and it bids you also to put on board the ship the goods purchased, or else to pay a fine of five thousand drachmae. You ignore this clause in the agreement, but after having from the first violated its provisions by failing to put the goods on board, you raise a dispute about a single phrase in it, though you have by your own act rendered it null and void. For when you state that you did not put the goods on board in
34.36Now, men of the jury, if it were toward myself only that Lampis were showing contempt, it would be nothing to cause surprise; but in reality he has acted far more outrageously than Phormio toward you all. For when Paerisades had published a decree in
In proof that my words are true, take, please, the deposition and the law.Deposition
Law
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 34.24 | Dem. 34.33 (Greek) | >>Dem. 34.42 |
