Trapeziticus

Or was I of opinion that by bringing the matter to issue in court I should have greater influence with you than Pasion, even contrary to justice—I, who was not even preparing to remain in Athens, since I feared that Satyrus would demand of you my extradition? Or was I going to act so that, without accomplishing anything, I should make a personal enemy of the man with whom, as it happened, of all the inhabitants of Athens, I was on terms of greatest intimacy? Who of you, I ask, would think it right to condemn me as being guilty of such folly and stupidity?

It is also right, men of the jury, that you should note the absurdity and the incredibility of the arguments which Pasion on each occasion undertook to present. For when my situation was such that, even if he acknowledged that he was defrauding me of my money, I could not have exacted the penalty from him, it is then that he accuses me of trying to make unjust claims; but when I had been declared innocent of the slanderous charges lodged with Satyrus and all thought that he would lose his suit, it is then that he says I renounced all claims against him. And yet how could anything be more illogical than this?