For Phormio

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.