Against Phormio

The request that I shall make of you, men of the jury, is a fair one, that you should hear us with goodwill as we speak in our turn,[*](Others, less probably, render, as we take our turns in addressing you.) knowing well that we are wholly without experience in the art of speaking; and long as we have been frequenting your mart, and many as are the merchants to whom we have made loans, we have never until now appeared in any suit before you either as plaintiffs or as defendants.

And you may be sure, men of Athens, that we should not even now have brought this action against Phormio, if we believed that the money which we lent him had been lost on the ship that was wrecked; we are not so shameless nor so unaccustomed to losses. But as many have kept taunting us, and especially those who were in Bosporus with Phormio, who knew that he had not lost the money together with the ship, we thought it a dreadful thing not to seek redress after being wronged as we had been by this man.

With reference to the special plea my argument is a brief one. For even the defendants do not absolutely deny that a contract was made on your exchange[*](The word rendered exchange or market, may well designate merely the Peiraeus, which was in a very real sense the ἐμπόριον of Athens.); but they claim that there exists no longer any obligation on their part due to the contract, for they have done nothing that contravenes the terms of the agreement.

The laws, however, in accordance with which you sit as jurors, do not use this language. They do indeed allow the production of a special plea when there has been no contract at all at Athens or for the Athenian market; but if a man admits that a contract was made, yet contends that he has done everything that the contract requires, they bid him to make a defence on the merits of the case, and not to make the plaintiff a defendant.[*](As happened, of course, when a plea in bar of action was introduced.) Not but that I hope to prove from the facts of the case itself that this suit of mine is admissible.

And I beg you, men of Athens, to consider what is admitted by these men, and what is disputed; for in this way you will best sift the question. They admit that they borrowed the money, and that they had contracts made to secure the loan; but they claim that they have paid the money to Lampis, the servant of Dio, in Bosporus. We, on our part, shall prove, not only that Phormio did not pay it, but that it was actually impossible for him to pay it. But I must recount to you a few of the things that happened at the outset.

I, men of Athens, lent to this man, Phormio, twenty minae for the double voyage to Pontus and back, on the security of goods of twice that value,[*](Such seems the most probable meaning of the disputed phrase.) and deposited a contract with Cittus the banker. But, although the contract required him to put on board the ship goods to the value of four thousand drachmae, he did the most outrageous thing possible. For while still in the Peiraeus he, without our knowledge, secured an additional loan of four thousand five hundred drachmae from Theodorus the Phoenician, and one of one thousand drachmae from Lampis the shipowner.

And, whereas he was bound to purchase at Athens a cargo worth one hundred and fifteen minae,[*](If the loans were all made on the same basis (i.e. on the security of goods of a value twice as great as the loan) we should have to read one hundred and fifty instead of one hundred and fifteen, as the combined loans amounted to seventy-five minae. It is possible, however, that Theodorus and Lampis, whose loans were for the outward voyage only, and who sailed with Phormio, accepted a lower rate than that demanded by Chrysippus and his partner, who remained in Athens.) if he was to perform for all his creditors what was written in their agreements, he purchased only a cargo worth five thousand five hundred drachmae, including the provisions; while his debts were seventy-five minae. This was the beginning of his fraud, men of Athens; he neither furnished security, nor put the goods on board the ship, although the agreement absolutely bade him do so.

Take the agreement, please.

The Agreement

Now take also the entry made by the customs-officers and the depositions.

The Entry of the Customs. The Depositions

When he came, then, to Bosporus, having letters from me, which I had given him to deliver to my slave, who was spending the winter there, and to a partner of mine,—in which letter I had stated the sum which I had lent and the security, and bade them, as soon as the goods should be unshipped, to inspect them and keep an eye on them,—the fellow did not deliver to them the letters which he had received from me, in order that they might know nothing of what he was doing; and, finding that business in Bosporus was bad owing to the war which had broken out between Paerisades[*](The King of Pontus.) and the Scythian, and that there was no market for the goods which he had brought, he was in great perplexity; for his creditors, who had lent him money for the outward voyage, were pressing him for payment.

When, therefore, the shipowner bade him put on board according to the agreement the goods bought with my money, this fellow, who now alleges that he has paid the debt in full, said that he could not ship the goods because his trash was unsalable; and he bade him put to sea, saying that he himself would sail in another ship as soon as he should dispose of the cargo

Please take this deposition.

The Deposition

After this, men of Athens, the defendant was left in Bosporus, while Lampis put to sea, and was shipwrecked not far from the port; for although his ship was already overloaded, as we learn, he took on an additional deck-load of one thousand hides, which proved the cause of the loss of the vessel. He himself made his escape in the boat with the rest of Dio’s servants, but he lost more than thirty[*](The MS. reading is τριακόσια (300), but it is most unlikely that there were so many persons on board, unless this was a slave ship. Such an aspiration, however, seems improbable, and does not accord well with the statement that there was much mourning in Bosporus over the disaster.) lives besides the cargo. There was much mourning in Bosporus when they learned of the loss of the ship, and everybody deemed this Phormio lucky in that he had not sailed with the others, nor put any goods on board the ship. The same story was told by the others and by Phormio himself.

Read me, please, these depositions.

The Depositions

Lampis himself, to whom Phormio declares he had paid the gold (pray note this carefully), when I approached him as soon as he had returned to Athens after the shipwreck and asked him about these matters, said that Phormio did not put the goods on board the ship according to our agreement, nor had he himself received the gold from him at that time in Bosporus.

Read, please, the deposition of those who were present.

The Deposition

Now, men of Athens, when this man Phormio reached Athens, after completing his voyage in safety on another ship, I approached him and demanded payment of the loan. And at the first, men of Athens, he did not in any instance make the statement which he now makes, but always agreed that he would pay; but after he had entered into an agreement with those who are now at his side and are advocates with him, he was then and there different and not at all the same man.

When I saw that he was trying to cheat me, I went to Lampis and told him that Phormio was not doing what was right nor paying back the loan; and at the same time I asked him if he knew where Phormio was, in order that I might summon him. He bade me follow him, and we found the fellow at the perfumery shops; and I, having witnesses with me, served the summons.

Lampis, men of Athens, was close at hand when I did this, yet he never ventured to say that he had received the money from Phormio, nor did he say, as he naturally would have done supposing his story to be true, Chrysippus, you are mad. Why do you summon this man? He has paid me the money. And not only did Lampis not say a word, but neither did Phormio himself venture to say anything, although Lampis was standing by his side, to whom he now declares he had paid the money.

Yet, men of Athens, it would surely have been natural for him to say, Why do you summon me, fellow? I have paid the money to this man who is standing here —and at the same time to call upon Lampis to corroborate his words. As it was, however, neither of them uttered a syllable on an occasion so opportune.

In proof that my words are true, take, please, the deposition of those who witnessed the summons.

The Deposition

Now take the complaint in the action which I commenced against him last year, for this is the strongest possible proof that up to that time Phormio had never stated that he had paid the money to Lampis.

The Complaint

This action I commenced, men of Athens, basing my complaint upon nothing else than the report of Lampis, who denied that Phormio had put the goods on board the ship or that he himself had received the money. Do not imagine that I am so senseless, so absolutely crazy, as to have drawn up a complaint like this, if Lampis (whose words would prove my contention false) admitted that he had received the money.

More than this, men of Athens, note another fact. These very men entered a special plea last year, but dared not assert in their plea that they had paid the money to Lampis.

Now, pray take the plea itself.

The Special Plea

You hear, men of Athens. Nowhere in the plea is it stated that Phormio had paid the money to Lampis, though I had expressly written in the complaint, which you heard a moment ago, that Phormio had not put the goods on board the ship nor paid the money. For what other witness, then, should you wait, when you have so significant a piece of evidence from these men themselves?

When the suit was about to come into court, they begged us to refer it to an arbitrator; and we referred it by agreement to Theodotus, a privileged alien[*](The word is used of one who, though an alien, paid only the taxes paid by citizens without the addition of the special tax on aliens.) Lampis after that, thinking that it would now, before an arbitrator, be safe for him to testify just as he pleased, divided my money with this fellow Phormio, and then gave testimony the very opposite of what he had stated before.

For it is not the same thing, men of Athens, to give false testimony while face to face with you and to do so before an arbitrator. With you heavy indignation and severe penalty await those who bear false witness; but before an arbitrator they give what testimony they please without risk and without shame. When I expostulated and expressed strong indignation, men of Athens, at the effrontery of Lampis,

and produced before the arbitrator the same testimony as I now produce before you—that, namely, of the persons who at the first went to him with me, when he stated that he had not received the money from Phormio, and that Phormio had not put the goods on board the ship—Lampis, being so plainly convicted of bearing false witness and of playing the rogue, admitted that he had made the statement to my partner here,[*](I take the phrase πρὸς τοῦτον with εἰρηκέναι, assuming that the reference is to the partner of Chrysippus, who apparently takes the latter’s place as speaker at the beginning of the next paragraph.) but declared that he was out of his mind when he made it.

Now read me this deposition.

The Deposition

The partner of Chrysippus now speaks.