Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.].
<<Dem. 49.1 Dem. 49.17 (Greek) >>Dem. 49.28

49.13He was hard pressed on every side, his life was in extreme danger because of the gravity of the misfortunes which had befallen the state, the army in Calaureia note had been broken up for want of pay, the allies around Peloponnesus were being besieged by the Lacedaemonians, Iphicrates and Callistratus were accusing him of being responsible for the present disaster, and, furthermore, those who came from the army were reporting before the assembly the distress and need that existed, and at the same time individuals kept receiving word from their relatives and friends telling of their plight. These things you all heard in the popular assembly at that time, and you remember how each man of you felt toward him; you are not without knowledge of what people were saying. 49.14Well, then, when he was on the point of sailing home for his trial, the defendant, while still in Calaureia, borrowed from Antiphanes of Lamptrae, note who sailed with Philip the shipowner as his treasurer, the sum of one thousand drachmae to distribute among the Boeotian trierarchs, that they might remain with the fleet until his trial should come off, for fear lest, if the Boeotian fleet should first be broken up and the troops scattered here and there to their homes, you might be the more incensed against him. 49.15For although our countrymen endured their privations and remained at their posts, the Boeotians declared that they would not stay, unless somebody should furnish them with their daily rations. Under stress of necessity, then, at that time he borrowed the thousand drachmae from Antiphanes, who sailed with Philip, the shipowner, as his treasurer, and gave them to the admiral of the Boeotian fleet. 49.16But when he got back to Athens, both Philip and Antiphanes demanded of him the thousand drachmae which he had borrowed in Calaureia, and were angry at not receiving their money at once. Timotheus, then, fearing that his enemies might learn that the thousand drachmae, which in his report he stated he had paid for the Boeotian fleet out of the military fund, had in fact been lent by Philip, who could not get them back, 49.17and fearing also that Philip might give testimony against him at his trial, came to my father and begged him to settle with Philip, and to lend him the thousand drachmae to pay Philip. And my father, seeing the seriousness of the trial in which the defendant was involved, and in what plight he was, felt pity for him, and, taking him to the bank, bade Phormio, who was cashier, to pay Philip the thousand drachmae, and to enter on the books Timotheus as owing that amount.

49.18To prove that these statements are true, I shall bring forward Phormio, who paid the money, as a witness, as soon as I shall have explained to you the other loan, in order that, being informed through the same deposition about the whole of the debt, you may know that I am speaking the truth. I shall also call before you Antiphanes, who lent the sum of one thousand drachmae to the defendant in Calaureia, and who was present when Philip received payment of the money from my father here in Athens. 49.19That I did not put the deposition in the box before the arbitrator was due to a trick of Antiphanes, who kept saying that he would give evidence for me on the day set for the decision; but when the hearing was in progress before the arbitrator, although he was summoned from his house (for he was nowhere to be seen), he was persuaded by Timotheus to fail to appear as a witness. On my depositing a drachma in his name on a charge of failing to appear, as the law prescribes, the arbitrator did not make an award against the defendant, but decided in his favor, and then went off, for it was already late. 49.20Now, however, I have entered suit on my own account for damages against Antiphanes because he neither gave testimony for me, nor asked under oath for a postponement, as the law provides. And I demand of him that he get up and state under oath before you, first, whether he lent Timotheus a thousand drachmae in Calaureia, and secondly, whether Philip received here payment of that sum from my father. 49.21The defendant himself practically admitted before the arbitrator that my father paid Philip the thousand drachmae; but he declared that it was not to him (Timotheus) that my father lent the money, but to the Boeotian admiral, who, he alleges, gave some copper as security for the sum. However, that in this he was not stating the truth, but that he borrowed the money himself and is seeking to avoid payment, I shall prove to you, when I shall have informed you in detail regarding his other debts also.

49.22In the month Maimacterion note in the archonship of Asteius, note Alcetas and Jason came to visit Timotheus to be present at his trial and give him their support, and they arrived at his house in Peiraeus in the Hippodameia note when it was already evening. Being at a loss how to entertain them, he sent his body servant Aeschrion to my father and bade him ask for the loan of some bedding and cloaks and two silver bowls and to borrow a mina of silver. 49.23And my father, hearing from Aeschrion, the body-servant of the defendant, that they had arrived and the urgent need for which the request was made, both supplied the objects for which the slave had come and lent the mina of silver which he asked to borrow. Well, when he had been acquitted of the charge, the defendant found himself in sore straits for money to pay his private debts and the taxes to the state, and my father, seeing this, did not venture to demand repayment of the money at once;



Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.].
<<Dem. 49.1 Dem. 49.17 (Greek) >>Dem. 49.28

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