Against Nausimachus and Xenopeithes

You hear the law, men of the jury, expressly stating the several cases in which there shall be no actions. One of them (and it is as binding as any of the others) is that suit may not be brought in matters for which anyone has given a release and discharge. Yet, although the release was thus given in the presence of numerous witnesses, and although the law manifestly absolves us, these men have come to such a pitch of shamelessness and audacity,

that, when fourteen years have elapsed from the time when they gave my father a release, and twenty-two years after they had first indicted him,[*](This passage offers difficulties. The best established text can be rendered only as above; but the question at once arises: why the long lapse of time between the filing of the suit and the settlement? Again, the use of γεγραμμένοι of a civil suit is suprising, although this difficulty might be met by assuming (with Kennedy) that a public prosecution is meant; but even so the eight year period remains unexplained. If with MS. A we read ἐγγεγραμμένοι and render, after they had been enrolled as citizens, we still have to ask why they should have waited eight years after attaining their majority before seeking an accounting from their guardians.) when my father was now dead, with whom the settlement had been made and also the guardians who after his death had charge of our property, when their own mother, too, was dead, who was well-informed regarding all these matters, and the arbitrators, the witnesses, and almost everybody else, if I may so say, counting our inexperience and necessary ignorance a boon to themselves, they have instituted these suits against us, and have the audacity to make statements which are neither just nor reasonable.

They declare that they did not sell their father’s estate for the money which they received, nor did they give up the property, but that all that was left them—credits, furniture, and even money—still belongs to them. I, for my part, know by hearsay that Xenopeithes and Nausicrates[*](The former was the uncle, the latter the father of the plaintiff.) left their entire property in outstanding debts, and possessed very little tangible property; and that when the debts had been collected and some furniture and slaves had been sold, their guardians purchased the farms and lodging-houses, which our opponents received from them.

If there had been no dispute about these matters before, and no suit had been entered charging maladministration of the property, it would have been another story; but since these men brought suit against our father in the matter of his general conduct as guardian and recovered damages, all these matters were at that time released. For our opponents, I take it, did not bring suit for the mere name mal-administration in guardianship, but for the money; nor did the guardians buy off this name with the money which they paid, but they bought off the claims.