Apollodorus Against Nicostratus

Hearing this, Nicostratus thanked me, and bade me to proceed with the matter with all speed before the expiration of the days in the course of which he said he must pay the ransom. Accordingly I mortgaged my lodging-house for sixteen minae, to Arcesas of Pambotadae,[*](Pambotadae, a deme of the tribe Erectheïs.) whom Nicostratus himself introduced to me, and he lent me the money at the interest rate of eight obols a month for each mina.[*](That is, at the rate of 16 per cent.) But, when Nicostratus had got the money, so far from showing any gratitude for what I had done for him, he immediately began to lay a plot against me to rob me of my money and become my enemy, in order that I might be at a loss how to deal with the matter, since I was young and without experience in affairs, and might not exact from him the sum for which the lodging-house had been mortgaged, but might forgive him the debt.

Accordingly he first conspired against me with some persons with whom I was at law, and bound himself by an oath to support them; then, after my action against them had commenced, he divulged to them my arguments, with which he was acquainted, and he entered me as a debtor to the public treasury to the amount of six hundred and ten drachmae, as a fine for non-production of property (although no citation had been served upon me), having got the case brought on through the agency of Lycidas the miller. As witnesses against me to attest the citation, he entered the name of his own brother, this Arethusius to whom these slaves belong, and another person; and they were prepared, in the event of my bringing to a preliminary hearing the suits which I had entered against my relatives[*](The reference is to his law-suits with Phormion and Stephanus; see Dem. 36, Dem. 45 and Dem. 46.) who were wronging me, to lay an information against me, as being a debtor to the treasury, and throw me into prison.