Apollodorus Against Timotheus

Let no one of you think, men of the jury, that it is a thing beyond belief that Timotheus should have owed money to my father and is now being prosecuted by me in this suit. On the contrary, when I have called to your minds the occasion on which the loan was contracted and the events in which the defendant was at that time involved and the straits to which he was reduced, you will then hold that my father was most generous to Timotheus, and that the defendant is not only ungrateful, but is the most dishonest of humankind;

for he got from my father all that he asked, and received from the bank money at a time when he was in great need and when he was in grievous danger of losing his life[*](His treasurer, Antimachus, actually was condemned to death, and Timotheus himself was saved from a like fate only by the intercession of influential friends. See Dem. 49.10.); yet he has not only made no return, but even seeks to rob me of the money which was granted him. And yet, if matters had gone badly with Timotheus, my father’s money, too, was lost, for he lent it without security and without witnesses; but, if the defendant got off safe, it rested with him to choose when, having the funds available, he should pay us back.

But for all that, men of the jury, my father did not count the holding of large sums of money as important a matter as to supply Timotheus with what he needed in the time of his distress. No, my father thought, men of the jury, that, if Timotheus then got safely out of those dangers and returned home from the service of the king,[*](After being deposed from his command of the Athenian fleet in 373 B.C., Timotheus entered the service of the king of Persia.) when the defendant was in better circumstances than at the time, he would not only recover his money, but would be in a position to obtain whatever else he might wish from Timotheus.

But as matters have not turned out as my father expected, since the money which Timotheus asked of my father and gratefully received from the bank he is determined, now that my father is dead, to pay back only if forced to do so by hostile legal procedure, and by convincing proof of his indebtedness, and, if he can convince you by deceitful arguments that he is not liable, to rob us of the money—I count it necessary to inform you fully of everything from the beginning: the several loans, the purpose for which he expended each sum, and the dates at which the obligations were contracted.

And let no one of you wonder that I have accurate knowledge of these matters; for bankers are accustomed to write out memoranda of the sums which they lend, the purposes for which funds are desired, and the payments which a borrower makes, in order that his receipts and his payments may be known to them for their accounts.

It was then, in the archonship of Socratidas,[*](The archonship of Socratidas fell in 374-373 B.C.) in the month Munichion,[*](Munichion corresponds to the latter half of April and the prior half of May.) when the defendant Timotheus was about to sail on his second expedition and was already in the Peiraeus on the point of putting to sea, that, being in want of money, he came to my father in the port and urged him to lend him one thousand three hundred and fifty-one drachmae two obols, declaring that he needed that additional sum; and he bade him give the money to his treasurer Antimachus, who at that time managed everything for him.