On the Property of Aristophanes: Against the Treasury

Could human beings have a more miserable fate than to lose their own property, and then to be supposed to hold that of the mulcted party? And the greatest hardship of all for us will be that, having taken charge of my sister and her many children, we must rear them with no means available even for ourselves, if you deprive us of what we now have.

I adjure you, by the Olympian gods, gentlemen, just consider it in this way: suppose that one of you had happened to bestow his daughter or his sister on Timotheus,[*](A friend of Isocrates, and an important Athenian commander and statesman, c. 380-352 B.C. His father Conon, like Aristophanes’ father Nicophemus, resided and died in Cyprus.) son of Conon, and during his absence abroad Conon was involved in some slander and his estate was confiscated, and the city received from the sale of the whole something less than four talents of silver. Would you think it right that his children and relatives should be ruined merely because the property had turned out to be but a trifling fraction of the amount at which it stood in your estimation?

But of course you are all aware that Conon held the command, and Nicophemus carried out his instructions. Now it is probable that Conon allotted to others but a small proportion of his prizes; so that if it be thought that Nicophemus’s gains were great, it must be allowed that Conon’s were more than ten times greater.

Furthermore, there is no evidence of any dispute having occurred between them; so probably in regard to money they agreed in deciding that each should leave his son with a competence here,[*](In Athens.) while keeping the rest in his own hands.[*](In Cyprus.) For Conon had a son and a wife in Cyprus, and Nicophemus a wife and a daughter, and they also felt that their property there was just as safe as their property here.