For Phormio

But, if the papers had been made away with, on the basis of what papers did he commence his suits?

In proof that I am speaking the truth in this, you have heard the distribution which he accepted, and the evidence in proof of it has been presented to you. The clerk will now read you the depositions having to do with these actions. Please take the depositions.

The Depositions

In these complaints, then, he has admitted that he had received his father’s papers; for he surely would not say that he was bringing baseless charges, or that he was suing these men for what they did not owe.

There are many strong proofs from which one can see that the defendant Phormio is not in the wrong; but the strongest of all, in my opinion, is this: that Pasicles, though he is the brother of Apollodorus, the plaintiff, has neither entered suit nor made any of the charges which the plaintiff makes. But surely the defendant would not have abstained from wronging one who had been left a minor by his father, and over whose property he had control, since he had been left as his guardian, yet would have wronged you, who at your father’s death were left a man of four and twenty, and who on your own behalf would easily and immediately have obtained justice, if any wrong had been done you. That is impossible.

To prove that I am speaking the truth in this, and that Pasicles makes no complaint, take, please, the deposition regarding the matter.

The Deposition

The points which you should now consider in regard to my plea that the action is not admissible, I beg you to recall from what has already been said. We, men of Athens, inasmuch as an accounting had been made and a discharge given from the lease of the bank and of the shield-factory; inasmuch as there had been an arbitrator’s award and again a discharge from all claims;

inasmuch also as the laws do not allow suits to be brought in cases where a discharge has once been given; and inasmuch as the plaintiff makes a baseless and malicious claim, and brings suit contrary to the laws; we have put in a special plea as allowed by the laws that his suit is not admissible. In order, then, that you may understand the matter regarding which you are going to vote, he shall read you this law and the depositions in sequence of those who were present when Apollodorus discharged Phormio from the lease and from all other claims.

Take these depositions, please, and the law.

The Depositions. The Law

You hear the law, men of Athens, stating other cases in which suit may not be brought, and in particular those in which anyone has given a release or discharge.[*](The two verbs ἀφιέναι and ἀπαλλάτειν seem at times to be virtual synonyms, used freely with the redundancy of legal usage. In some cases, however, ἀφιέναι refers clearly to the creditor’s act, and ἀπαλλάτειν to the effect on the debtor. Parallel passages are Dem. 37.1 and Dem. 37.19; and Dem. 38.1.) And with good reason. For if it is just that suit may not be brought again for cases which have once been tried, it is far more just that suit be not allowed for claims in which a discharge has been given. For a man who has lost his suit in your court might perhaps say that you had been deceived; but when a man has plainly decided against himself, by giving a release and discharge, what complaint can he bring against himself that will give him the right to bring suit again regarding the same matters? None whatever, of course. Therefore the man who framed this law placed first among cases in which suit may not be brought all those in which a man has given a release or discharge. Both of these have been given by the plaintiff; for he has released and discharged the defendant. That I am speaking the truth, men of Athens, has been proved to you by the evidence presented.

Take now, please, the statute of limitations.

The Law

The law, men of Athens, has thus clearly defined the time. But this man Apollodorus, when more than twenty years have gone by, demands that you pay more heed to his malicious charges than to the laws in accordance with which you have sworn to give judgement. You should have regard to all the laws, but to this one, men of Athens, above all others.

For, in my judgement, Solon[*](It was the custom at Athens to emphasize the sanctity of a given law by attributing its enactment to the great lawgiver, Solon. So, in Sparta, laws were conventionally assumed to have been enacted by Lycurgus.) framed it for no other purpose than to prevent your having to be subjected to malicious and baseless actions. For in the case of those who were wronged, he thought that a period of five years was enough to enable them to recover what was their due; while the lapse of time would best serve to convict those who advanced false claims. At the same time, since he realized that neither the contracting parties nor the witnesses would live forever, he put the law in their place, that it might be a witness of truth for those who had no other defence.

I, for my part, am wondering, men of the jury, what in the world the plaintiff, Apollodorus, will try to say in reply to these arguments. For he can hardly have made this assumption that you, although seeing that he has suffered no wrong financially, will be indignant because Phormio has married his mother. For he is not unaware of this—it is no secret to him or to many of you—that Socrates, the well-known banker, having been set free by his masters just as the plaintiff’s father had been, gave his wife in marriage to Satyrus who had been his slave.

Another, Socles, who had been in the banking business, gave his wife in marriage to Timodemus, who is still in being and alive, who had been his slave. And it is not here only, men of Athens, that those engaged in this line of business so act; but in Aegina Strymodorus gave his wife in marriage to Hermaeus, his own slave, and again, after her death, gave him his own daughter.[*](It is probable that the word gave refers to provisions in the will of Strymodorus. We must then assume that the wife died after the will was made, but before the death of Strymodorus. So Sandys.)

And one could mention many other such cases; and no wonder. For although to you, men of Athens, who are citizens by birth, it would be a disgrace to esteem any conceivable amount of wealth above your honorable descent, yet those who obtain citizenship as a gift either from you or from others, and who in the first instance, thanks to this good fortune, were counted worthy of the same privileges, because of their success in money-making, and their possession of more wealth than others, must hold fast to these advantages. So your father Pasio—and he was neither the first nor the last to do this—without bringing disgrace upon himself or upon you, his sons, but seeing that the only protection for his business was that he should bind the defendant to you by a family tie, for this reason gave to him in marriage his own wife, your mother.

If, then, you examine his conduct in the light of practical utility you will find that he determined wisely; but if from family pride you scorn Phormio as stepfather, see if it be not absurd for you to speak thus. For, if one were to ask you what sort of a man you deem your father to have been, I am sure that you would say, an honorable man. Now, then, which of you two do you think more resembles Pasio in character and in manner of life, yourself or Phormio? I know well that you think Phormio does. Then do you scorn this man who is more like your father than you are yourself, just because he has married your mother?

But that this arrangement was made by your father’s grant and solemn injunction may not only be seen from the will, men of Athens, but you yourself, Apollodorus, are a witness to the fact. For when you claimed the right to distribute your mother’s estate share by share—and she had left children by the defendant, Phormio—you then acknowledged that your father had given her with full right, and that she had been married in accordance with the laws. For if Phormio had taken her to wife wrongfully, and no one had given her—then the children were not heirs, and if they were not heirs they had no right of sharing in the property.[*](Illegitimate children could not inherit; and the fact that Apollodorus recognized the children of Phormio and Archippê as heirs, proves that he admitted the legality of the marriage.)

To prove that I am speaking the truth in this evidence has been submitted showing that he received a fourth share[*](There were four children: Apollodorus and Pasicles, and the two born of Phormio and Archippê.) and gave a release from all claims.

Having, then, on no single point, men of Athens, any just claim to advance, he had the audacity to make before the arbitrator the most shameless assertions which it is best that you should hear in advance: first that no will was made at all, but that this is a fiction and forgery from beginning to end; and, secondly, that the reason why he had made all these concessions up to now, and had abstained from going to law, was because Phormio was willing to pay him a large rent, and promised that he would do so. But since he does not do this, now, he says, I go to law.

But that both of these statements, if he makes them, will be false and inconsistent with his own conduct, pray observe from the following considerations. When he denies the will, ask him this, how it came that he received the lodging-house under the will as being the elder.[*](A right not often recognized in Attic law. Compare Dem. 39.29.) He surely will not claim that all the clauses which his father wrote in the will in his favor are valid, and the others invalid.

And when he says that he was misled by the defendant’s promises, remember that we have brought before you as witnesses those who for a long time, after Phormio had given it up, became lessees under the two brothers of the bank and the shield-factory. And yet it was when he granted the lease to these men, that he should at once have made his charges against the defendant if there were any truth in the claims, for which he then gave a release, but for which he now brings suit against him.

To prove that I am speaking the truth that he took the lodging-house under the terms of the will as being the elder, and that he not only thought it right to make no claims against the defendant, but on the contrary praised his conduct, take the deposition.

The Deposition

That you may know, men of Athens, what large sums he has received from the rents and from the debts[*](The debts, that is, due to his father.)—he, who will presently wail as though he were destitute and had lost everything—hear a brief account from me. This man has collected twenty talents in all owing to debts he has recovered from the papers which his father left, and of these sums more than half he keeps in his possession; for in many instances he is defrauding his brother of his share.

From the lessee, for the eight years during which Phormio had the bank, he received eighty minae a year, half of the whole rent. These items make ten talents and forty minae.[*](The rent of the factory was a talent a year, and that of the bank a talent and forty minae, making a total of one hundred and sixty minae annually, or eighty minae apiece for each of the two brothers, or ten talents and forty minae for the eight-year period.) For ten years after that, during which they subsequently leased the bank to Xeno and Euphraeus and Euphro and Callistratus, he received a talent every year.[*](The rents under the new lease remained the same as before, but Apollodorus received only that from the shield-factory, or a talent annually.)

Besides this he has had for about twenty years the income of the property originally divided, of which he himself had charge, more than thirty minae. If you add all these sums together,—what he got from the distribution, what he recovered from the debts, and what he has collected as rent, it will be plain that he has received more than forty talents, to say nothing of the present Phormio made him, and his inheritance from his mother, and what he has had from the bank and does not pay back—two and one-half talents and six hundred drachmae.

Ah, but, you will tell us, the state has received these sums, and you have been outrageously treated, having used up your fortune in public services! No; what you expended in public service out of the undivided funds, you and your brother expended jointly; and what you gave after that does not amount to the interest, I will not say on two talents, but even on twenty minae. Do not, then, accuse the state, nor say that the state has received that portion of your patrimony which you have shamefully and wickedly squandered.

That you may know, men of Athens, the amount of property which he has received, and the public services which he has assumed, the clerk shall read to you the items one by one.

Please take this list and this challenge and these depositions.

The List. The Challenge. The Depositions