| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 37.40 | Dem. 37.50 (Greek) | >>Dem. 37.60 |
37.46And yet up to this day he has never had the case examined before the Archon, whom the law appoints to have charge of such matters, and before whom the wrongdoer runs the risk of having punishment or fine adjudged against him, while by the prosecutor redress is sought without risk; note nor has he impeached either me or Evergus as wrongdoers, but he made these charges in the court-room, and secured a verdict for two talents.
37.47For, I take it, it would have been an easy matter for Evergus, if he had known in advance (as under the laws he should have known) the charge on which he was being tried, to set forth the truth of the matter and the justice of his cause, and so win acquittal; but in a mining suit regarding matters concerning which he could never have imagined that he would be accused, it was hard to find, offhand, means to free himself from the false charges; and the indignation note of the jurymen, who were misled by the plaintiff, found him guilty in the matter upon which they sat in judgement.
37.48And yet do you think that the man who deceived those jurymen will hesitate to try to deceive you?—or that he comes into court with his confidence fixed upon the facts, and not rather upon assertions and upon the witnesses who are in league with him (that foul blackguard Procles, the tall fellow there, and Stratocles, the smoothest-tongued of men and the basest), and in his readiness to weep and wail without disguise or shame?
37.49But you are so far from deserving pity, that more than any man in the world you should rightly be detested for the deeds you have wrought—you who, owing one hundred and five minae and not being able to satisfy your creditors, and then finding men who helped you to raise the money and enabled you to do what was right by those who originally made the loan, are seeking, quite apart from the wrongs you committed against them in regard to the loan itself, also to deprive them of their civic rights. In the case of other men one may see borrowers having to give up their property, but in your case it is the lender who has come to this plight, and, having lent a talent, has been forced to pay two talents as the victim of a baseless charge;
37.50and I, who lent forty minae, am defendant in this suit for two talents. Again, on property on which you were never able to borrow more than one hundred minae, and which you sold outright for three talents and two thousand drachmae, note you have, as it seems, sustained damages to the amount of four talents! From whom? From my slave, you will say. But what citizen would let himself be ousted from his own property by a slave? Or who would say that it is right that my slave be held responsible for acts, for which the plaintiff has brought action against Evergus and obtained a verdict?
37.51Besides all this, the plaintiff has himself given him a release from all charges of this kind. He ought not to be stating these charges now, nor to have inserted them in the challenge in which he demanded the slave for torture, but to have instituted suit against him, and to have prosecuted me as his owner. As it is, he has instituted suit against me, but accuses him. This the laws do not permit. For whoever instituted suit against the master, and charged the facts against his slave—as though the slave had any authority of his own?
37.52When anyone asks him, “What valid charges will you be able to make against Nicobulus?” he says, “The Athenians hate money-lenders; Nicobulus is an odious fellow; he walks fast, note he talks loud, and he carries a cane; and (he says) all these things count in my favor.” He is not ashamed to talk in this way, and also fancies that his hearers do not understand that this is the reasoning, not of one who has suffered wrong, but of a malicious pettifogger. 37.53I, for my part, do not regard a money-lender as a wrongdoer, although certain of the class may justly be detested by you, seeing that they make a trade of it, and have no thought of pity or of anything else, except gain. Since I have myself often borrowed money, and not merely lent it to the plaintiff, I know these people well; and I do not like them, either but, by Zeus, I do not defraud them, nor bring malicious charges against them. 37.54But if a man has done business as I have, going to sea on perilous journeys, and from his small profits has made these loans, wishing not only to confer favors, but to prevent his money from slipping through his fingers without his knowing it, why should one set him down in that class?—unless you mean this, that anyone who lends money to you ought to be detested by the public.
Read me, please, the depositions, to show what manner of man I am to those who lend money, and to those who need my help.Depositions
37.55Such am I, Pantaenetus, the fast walker, and such are you, who walk slowly. However, regarding my gait and my manner of speech, I will tell you the whole truth, men of the jury, with all frankness. I am perfectly aware—I am not blind to the fact—that I am not one of those favored by nature in these respects, nor of those who are an advantage to themselves. For if in matters in which I reap no profit, I annoy others, surely I am to this extent unfortunate. 37.56But what is to come of it? If I lend money to so-and-so, am I for this reason also to lose my suit? Surely not. The plaintiff cannot point out any baseness or villainy attaching to me, nor does a single one among you, many as you are, know any such thing against me. As to these other qualities, each one of us, I take it, is as nature happened to make him; and to fight against nature, when one has these characteristics, is no easy task (for otherwise we should not differ from one another); though to recognize them in looking on another and to criticize them is easy.
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 37.40 | Dem. 37.50 (Greek) | >>Dem. 37.60 |
