| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 38.1 | Dem. 38.9 (Greek) | >>Dem. 38.20 |
38.6that, when fourteen years have elapsed from the time when they gave my father a release, and twenty-two years after they had first indicted him, note when my father was now dead, with whom the settlement had been made and also the guardians who after his death had charge of our property, when their own mother, too, was dead, who was well-informed regarding all these matters, and the arbitrators, the witnesses, and almost everybody else, if I may so say, counting our inexperience and necessary ignorance a boon to themselves, they have instituted these suits against us, and have the audacity to make statements which are neither just nor reasonable.
38.7They declare that they did not sell their father's estate for the money which they received, nor did they give up the property, but that all that was left them—credits, furniture, and even money—still belongs to them. I, for my part, know by hearsay that Xenopeithes and Nausicrates note left their entire property in outstanding debts, and possessed very little tangible property; and that when the debts had been collected and some furniture and slaves had been sold, their guardians purchased the farms and lodging-houses, which our opponents received from them.
38.8If there had been no dispute about these matters before, and no suit had been entered charging maladministration of the property, it would have been another story; but since these men brought suit against our father in the matter of his general conduct as guardian and recovered damages, all these matters were at that time released. For our opponents, I take it, did not bring suit for the mere name “mal-administration in guardianship,” but for the money; nor did the guardians buy off this name with the money which they paid, but they bought off the claims.
38.9That, therefore, these men have no right of action against us for the debts which our father collected before the settlement, or, in general, for monies which he received by virtue of his guardianship, seeing that they have given a release for their claims, I think you have all adequately learned from the laws themselves and from the release. Moreover, that it is impossible that the collection of these funds should have been made subsequently (this is the story they are making up to lead you astray), I wish to prove. 38.10As for my father, they cannot charge that he received them; for he died three or four months after the settlement was made with them; and that Demaretus, whom our father left as our guardian, could not have received them either (for they have written his name also in their complaint), this, too, I shall show. 38.11These men are themselves our strongest witnesses; for they will be shown never to have brought suit against Demaretus in his lifetime; but, more than that, anyone who examines and studies the case itself will see, not only that he did not receive the money, but that it was impossible that he should have received it. For the debt was in Bosporus, a place which Demaretus never visited; how, then, could he have collected it? Ah, but, they will say, he sent someone to get the money. 38.12But look at the matter in this way. Hermonax owed these men one hundred staters, note which he had received from Nausicrates. Aristaechmus was for sixteen years the guardian and caretaker of these men. Therefore, the money which Hermonax paid in his own person after these men had come of age, he had not paid when they were minors; for he certainly did not pay the same debt twice. Now is there any man so silly as voluntarily to pay money to one not entitled to it, who demanded it by letter, when he had for so long a time evaded payment to the rightful owners? For my part, I think there is not.
38.13However, to prove that I am speaking the truth,—that our father died immediately after the settlement, that these men never brought suit against Demaretus for this money, and that he absolutely never went to sea, nor visited Bosporus, take the depositions.
Depositions
38.14Well then, that our father did not collect the money after the release; that no one would voluntarily have paid the money, if Demaretus had sent someone to get it; and that he himself neither put out to sea nor visited Bosporus, has been made clear to you from the dates and the depositions. I wish, then, to show you that their whole statement too of the case is absolute falsehood. They have written in the complaint which they are now prosecuting, that we owe the money, inasmuch as our father received it in payment, and passed it over to them as a debt due and payable in his account of his guardianship.
Take, and read me, please, the complaint itself.Complaint
38.15You hear it stated in the complaint, “inasmuch as Aristaechmus passed the debt over to me in his account of his guardianship.” But, when they brought suit against my father in the matter of his guardianship, they wrote the very opposite of this; for they plainly charged him with not rendering an account.
Read, please, the complaint itself, which they then brought against my father.Complaint
38.16In what account, pray, Xenopeithes and Nausimachus, do you now charge that he passed the debt over to you? For at one time you brought suit and demanded money on the ground that he rendered no account. But if it is to be permitted you to bring your malicious charge on both grounds, and at one time you collected money because he did not hand something over to you, and at another are suing him on the ground that he did hand it over, there is nothing to prevent your looking for some third ground after this, so as to commence proceedings afresh. But that is not what the laws state: they declare that suit may be brought once only against the same person for the same acts.
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 38.1 | Dem. 38.9 (Greek) | >>Dem. 38.20 |
