For Phormio

For my own part, by Zeus and the gods, though I look at the matter from every side, I can see no reason why the jury should be induced by you to give a verdict against the defendant. Why should they? Because you make your charges so soon after the offence? But you make them years and ages later. Ah, but you avoided the trouble of lawsuits all this time? But who does not know of all the cases in which you have been engaged without ceasing, not only prosecuting private suits of no less importance than the present one, but maliciously trumping up public charges, and bringing men to trial? Did you not accuse Timomachus? Did you not accuse Callippus, who is now in Sicily? Or, again, Meno? or Autocles? or Timotheus? or hosts of others?[*](Timomachus, Meno, and Autocles (see Dem 50.) were successive commanders of the Athenian fleet in Thracian waters, where Apollodorus served as trierarch. Callippus is all but certainly to be identified with the trierarch of that name, who at the bidding of Timomachus, and after Apollodorus’s own refusal to do so, had transported the exile Callistratus from Macedonia to Thasos. Timotheus was the well-known Athenian general, against whom Apollodorus brought also a private suit to recover funds (Dem. 49).)

But is it reasonable to believe that you, who are Apollodorus, would deem it your duty to seek satisfaction for public wrongs, which touched you only in part, sooner than for the private wrongs, concerning which you now bring charges, especially when they were as grave as you now claim? Why, then, did you accuse those men, and leave Phormio alone? You were suffering no wrong, but methinks the charges which you are now bringing are baseless and malicious.