Greek Texts & Translations

42.16Read the depositions in support of what I have just said, and the laws.Depositions
Laws

Having, then, been thus treated by Phaenippus, men of the jury, I reported to the generals the following inventory of my property. Read.Inventory

42.17How else, then, in the name of the gods and divinities, men of the jury, should one prove that Phaenippus is liable under the laws which have been read, than precisely in the way in which I am proving it? Yet Phaenippus has none the less brought a counter-charge against me that I am not rendering a just inventory of my property; so easy is it for men of his stamp to make false statements before you; and he complains of the oath which I took before filing the inventory, asserting that I undertook to report all the rest of my property except that in the mining-works;—as if to swear according to law were a matter for complaint! 42.18But you know the law, men of the jury, for you enacted it, that which expressly makes this provision, that those tendering exchanges to one another, when they under oath report their inventories, shall swear also the following oath: “I will give a true and honest inventory of my property except that in the silver mines, all of which the laws have made exempt from taxes.” 42.19But, rather, read the law itself. Yet, stop a moment, please. For I made this offer before to Phaenippus, and now again, men of the jury, I tender it freely:—I will surrender to him all my property including that in the mining works, if he will hand over to me the farm alone free from all encumbrances as it was when I first went to it with witnesses, and will replace as they were before the grain and wine and the other things which he has carried away from the buildings after removing the seals from the doors. 42.20Why, pray, do you keep on talking and crying out? From my silver mines, Phaenippus, I formerly by my own bodily toil and labor reaped a large profit. I confess it. But now I have lost all but a small portion of my gains. You, on the contrary, since you sell from your farm your barley at a price of eighteen drachmae and your wine at a price of twelve, are a rich man, naturally, for you make more than a thousand medimni ^note of grain and above eight hundred measures ^note of wine. 42.21Ought I, then, to continue in the same class, when the same fortune does not attend me now as formerly? Do not demand that; it would not be just. No; do you also take your turn and share for a little while in the class that performs public services, since those engaged in mining have suffered reverses while you farmers are prospering beyond what is your due. For a considerable time you have enjoyed the income of two estates, that of your natural father, Callippus, and that of him who adopted you, Philostratus, the orator, and you have never done anything for your fellow-citizens here. ^note 42.22Yet my father left to each of us, my brother and myself, an estate of forty-five minae merely, on which it is not easy to live, while your fathers were possessed of such wealth that each of them set up a tripod in honor of choregic victories at the Dionysia. And I do not begrudge them this, for it is the duty of the wealthy to render service to the state. Do you, therefore, show that you have expended one single copper coin on the state—you, who have inherited two estates which performed public services. 42.23But you cannot show it, for you have learned secrecy and evasion and how to do everything to escape rendering service to your fellow-citizens here. But I will show that I have expended large sums—I, who inherited that slender estate from my father.

Now read me first that law which declares that no mining property shall be included in the inventory, and the challenge and then the depositions proving that this fellow Phaenippus has inherited two estates that performed public services.Law
Challenge
Depositions