| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 36.25 | Dem. 36.34 (Greek) | >>Dem. 36.44 |
36.31If, then, you examine his conduct in the light of practical utility you will find that he determined wisely; but if from family pride you scorn Phormio as stepfather, see if it be not absurd for you to speak thus. For, if one were to ask you what sort of a man you deem your father to have been, I am sure that you would say, “an honorable man.” Now, then, which of you two do you think more resembles Pasio in character and in manner of life, yourself or Phormio? I know well that you think Phormio does. Then do you scorn this man who is more like your father than you are yourself, just because he has married your mother?
36.32But that this arrangement was made by your father's grant and solemn injunction may not only be seen from the will, men of Athens, but you yourself, Apollodorus, are a witness to the fact. For when you claimed the right to distribute your mother's estate share by share—and she had left children by the defendant, Phormio—you then acknowledged that your father had given her with full right, and that she had been married in accordance with the laws. For if Phormio had taken her to wife wrongfully, and no one had given her—then the children were not heirs, and if they were not heirs they had no right of sharing in the property. note
To prove that I am speaking the truth in this evidence has been submitted showing that he received a fourth share note and gave a release from all claims.
36.33Having, then, on no single point, men of Athens, any just claim to advance, he had the audacity to make before the arbitrator the most shameless assertions which it is best that you should hear in advance: first that no will was made at all, but that this is a fiction and forgery from beginning to end; and, secondly, that the reason why he had made all these concessions up to now, and had abstained from going to law, was because Phormio was willing to pay him a large rent, and promised that he would do so. But since he does not do this, now, he says, I go to law. 36.34But that both of these statements, if he makes them, will be false and inconsistent with his own conduct, pray observe from the following considerations. When he denies the will, ask him this, how it came that he received the lodging-house under the will as being the elder. note He surely will not claim that all the clauses which his father wrote in the will in his favor are valid, and the others invalid. 36.35And when he says that he was misled by the defendant's promises, remember that we have brought before you as witnesses those who for a long time, after Phormio had given it up, became lessees under the two brothers of the bank and the shield-factory. And yet it was when he granted the lease to these men, that he should at once have made his charges against the defendant if there were any truth in the claims, for which he then gave a release, but for which he now brings suit against him.
To prove that I am speaking the truth that he took the lodging-house under the terms of the will as being the elder, and that he not only thought it right to make no claims against the defendant, but on the contrary praised his conduct, take the deposition.Deposition
36.36That you may know, men of Athens, what large sums he has received from the rents and from the debts note—he, who will presently wail as though he were destitute and had lost everything—hear a brief account from me. This man has collected twenty talents in all owing to debts he has recovered from the papers which his father left, and of these sums more than half he keeps in his possession; for in many instances he is defrauding his brother of his share. 36.37From the lessee, for the eight years during which Phormio had the bank, he received eighty minae a year, half of the whole rent. These items make ten talents and forty minae. note For ten years after that, during which they subsequently leased the bank to Xeno and Euphraeus and Euphro and Callistratus, he received a talent every year. note 36.38Besides this he has had for about twenty years the income of the property originally divided, of which he himself had charge, more than thirty minae. If you add all these sums together,—what he got from the distribution, what he recovered from the debts, and what he has collected as rent, it will be plain that he has received more than forty talents, to say nothing of the present Phormio made him, and his inheritance from his mother, and what he has had from the bank and does not pay back—two and one-half talents and six hundred drachmae. 36.39Ah, but, you will tell us, the state has received these sums, and you have been outrageously treated, having used up your fortune in public services! No; what you expended in public service out of the undivided funds, you and your brother expended jointly; and what you gave after that does not amount to the interest, I will not say on two talents, but even on twenty minae. Do not, then, accuse the state, nor say that the state has received that portion of your patrimony which you have shamefully and wickedly squandered.
36.40That you may know, men of Athens, the amount of property which he has received, and the public services which he has assumed, the clerk shall read to you the items one by one.
Please take this list and this challenge and these depositions.List
Challenge
Depositions
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 36.25 | Dem. 36.34 (Greek) | >>Dem. 36.44 |
