Greek Texts & Translations

53.1I have no desire to bring a baseless and malicious charge; but I have filed this inventory of property because I have suffered wrong and indignity from these men and therefore thought it my duty to avenge myself upon them. Of this you will find convincing proof, men of the jury, in the amount of the valuation, and in my having filed the information in my own name. For, I take it, if I had wished to bring a malicious suit, I should not have listed slaves worth two minae and a half, the sum at which the claimant himself has fixed their value, and myself have run the risk of losing a thousand drachmae, and forfeiting the right ever again to indict anyone on my own behalf. Nor, again, was I so lacking in resources or in friends as to be unable to find some one to file the information; 53.2but I thought it the most outrageous thing ever seen among men, that I should myself suffer the wrong, but that another should lend his name on behalf of me, the one wronged; and that this would then serve as presumptive proof to my adversaries that I am lying whenever I speak to you of our enmity; for they would say that no other man would have filed the information, if I were myself the one wronged. It was for this reason that I filed the information. And now that I have done so, if I can prove that the slaves belong to Arethusius, to whom they are stated in the information to belong, I relinquish to the state the three fourths which under the law are given to the private citizen filing the information; for myself it is enough to have taken vengeance. 53.3If, now, there were water enough in the water-clock to permit my telling you in detail from the beginning all the benefits I have conferred on them and all the acts they have committed toward me, I am sure that you would feel more lenient toward me for my resentment against them, and would deem these men the most wicked of humankind. As it is, however, even double the amount of water that I now have would be insufficient. I shall therefore relate to you the greatest and most flagrant of their wrongdoings, and those which gave rise to the filing of the information; the bulk of them I shall pass over.

53.4Nicostratus, whom you see here in court, men of the jury, was a neighbor of mine in the country, and a man of my own age. We had long known each other, but after my father's death, when I went to live in the country, where I still live, we had much more to do with one another, since we were neighbors and men of the same age. As time went on we became very intimate; indeed I came to feel on such intimate terms with him that he never failed to win any favor he asked of me; and he, on his part, was useful to me in looking after my affairs and managing them, and whenever I was abroad on public service as trierarch, or on any private business of my own, I used to leave him in charge of everything on the farm. 53.5It happened that I was sent as trierarch round the Peloponnesus, and from thence I had to carry to Sicily the ambassadors whom the people had elected. I was forced to set sail in haste, so I wrote to Nicostratus, telling him that I had to put to sea, and that I should not be able to come home for fear of delaying the ambassadors; and I charged him to look after the administration of matters at home, as he had done before.

53.6During my absence three household slaves of Nicostratus ran away from him from his farm, two of those whom I had given him, and one of a number whom he had purchased for himself. He pursued them, but was taken captive by a trireme and brought to Aegina, where he was sold. When I had come home with the ship of which I was in command, Deinon, this man's brother, came to me and told me of his misfortunes, stating that, although Nicostratus had sent him letters, he had not gone in quest of him for want of funds for the journey, and he told me also that he heard that his brother was in a dreadful condition. 53.7When I heard this I was touched with compassion for Nicostratus on account of his ill-fortune, and at once sent his brother Deinon to fetch him, giving him three hundred drachmae for his journey. When Nicostratus got home, he came at once to me, embraced me, thanked me for giving his brother money for his journey, bewailed his own unhappy lot, and, while complaining of his own relatives, begged me to succor him, just as in time past I had been a true friend to him. Then he wept, and told me that he had been ransomed for twenty-six minae, and urged me to contribute something toward the cost of his redemption.

53.8On hearing this story, I felt pity for him, and moreover I saw in what wretched plight he was, and he showed me the wounds of the fetters on his calves (he has the scars of them still, but, if you bid him show them to you, he will not wish to do so); I therefore answered that in time past I had been a true friend to him, and that now I would help him in his distress, that I forgave him the three hundred drachmae which I had given his brother for the expenses of his journey to fetch him, and that I would make a contribution of one thousand drachmae toward his ransom. 53.9Nor did I make this promise in words only and fail to perform it in act; but, since I was not well provided with funds in consequence of my quarrel with Phormion and of his depriving me of the estate which my father left me, I took to Theocles, who at that time was carrying on a banking business, some cups and a chaplet of gold, which I happened to have in my house as a part of my ancestral inheritance, and bade him give Nicostratus a thousand drachmae; and that sum I gave him outright as a gift, and I acknowledge that it was a gift.