Apollodorus Against Timotheus

For, when he introduced him, the timber had not yet come, but Philondas was about to make the journey to fetch it; when, however, he came back, bringing the timber, the defendant was abroad, but Philondas received the freight for the timber according to the defendant’s orders, and the timber was delivered to the defendant’s house in Peiraeus. That Timotheus was not well provided with funds when he sailed from Athens is already known to all of you to whom his estate was mortgaged, and whom he is now seeking to defraud.

However, to prove that he borrowed money from some of our citizens without security, since he had no equivalent security to give, please read the deposition.

The Deposition

Now regarding the bowls which Aeschrion, the body-servant of the defendant, requested of me in the month Maimacterion in the archonship of Asteius, when Timotheus was in Athens at the time when he entertained Alcetas and Jason, and with the value of which he was debited in the archonship of Alcisthenes—for some time my father supposed he would return the bowls which he had borrowed; but when he went off without having returned them, and the bowls of Timosthenes were no longer in the custody of Phormio, and the one who had deposited them came and demanded their return, my father paid the price of the bowls to Timosthenes, and wrote the defendant down as owing this sum in addition to the rest of his debt.

If, then, he makes use of this defence, that he was not in Athens at the time when he was debited with the cost of the bowls, make this reply to him: You received them, when here, and since you did not return them, and were abroad, and the bowls which the depositor claimed were not there, you were debited with their value, that sum, namely, which was paid for the bowls.