Against Diogeiton

WitnessesWell, gentlemen of the jury, I ask that due attention be given to this reckoning, in order that you may take pity on the young people for the depth of their misfortune, and may consider that this man deserves the anger of everyone in the city. For Diogeiton is reducing all men to such a state of suspicion towards their fellows that neither living nor dying can they place any more confidence in their nearest relations than in their bitterest enemies;

since he has had the face to deny one part of his debt and, after finally confessing to the rest, to make out a sum of seven talents of silver and seven thousand drachmae as receipts and expenses on account of two boys and their sister during eight years. So gross is his impudence that, not knowing how he should enter the sums spent, he reckoned for the viands of the two young boys and their sister five obols a day[*](At this period the daily cost of food for an adult could be reckoned at one obol: in the present case, for the food (other than cereal) of three children, the charge of five obols is at least twice what it should be. A more reasonable scale is suggested by the speaker at Lys. 32.28 below.); for shoes, laundry and hairdressing he kept no monthly or yearly account, but he shows it inclusively, for the whole period, as more than a talent of silver.