Against Aphobus I

This was the amount of productive capital which my father left, as these men will themselves admit, the principal amounting to four talents and five thousand drachmae,[*](In mercantile affairs the Greeks often preferred to reckon in thousands of drachmae instead of tens of minae.) and the proceeds to fifty minae each year. Besides this, he left ivory and iron, used in the factory, and wood for sofas, worth about eighty minae; and gall[*](This was obtained from the oak-apple and was used for staining wood or ivory.) and copper, which he had bought for seventy minae; furthermore, a house worth three thousand drachmae, and furniture and plate, and my mother’s jewelry and apparel and ornaments, worth in all ten thousand drachmae, and in the house eighty minae in silver.

To these sums left by him at home we must add seventy minae, a maritime loan to Xuthus; twenty-four hundred drachmae in the bank of Pasion, six hundred in that of Pylades, sixteen hundred in the hands of Demomeles, son of Demon, and about a talent loaned without interest in sums of two hundred or three hundred drachmae. The total of these last sums amounts to more than eight talents and fifty minae, and the whole taken together you will find on examination to come to about fourteen talents.[*](Strictly, thirteen talents and forty-six minae; see the Introduction.)

This, then, men of the jury, was the amount of property left by my father. How much of it has been squandered, how much they have severally taken, and of how much they have jointly robbed me, it is impossible to tell in the time[*](Literally, water, the time allotted to each speaker being measured by a water-clock.) allotted to one plea. I must discuss each one of these questions separately. I pass over the question as to what property of mine Demophon or Therippides are holding. It will be time enough to discuss this when I bring in my accusations against them. I shall speak to you now of the defendant and shall state what his colleagues prove that he has in his hands, and what I know he has taken. In the first place I shall show that he has the marriage-portion, the eighty minae, and after that shall take up the other matters and discuss them with the utmost brevity.