Against Diogeiton

For the father’s tomb, though he did not spend twenty-five minae of the five thousand drachmae shown, he charges half this sum to himself, and has entered half against them.[*](Having stated that the tomb cost 50 minae (5000 drachmae), he undertook to pay half of this himself, and charge the other half to the children’s estate: but this latter half covered the actual cost.) Then for the Dionysia,[*](Orphans’ estates were not required to contribute to the offerings at the State festivals.) gentlemen of the jury,—I do not think it irrelevant to mention this also,—he showed sixteen drachmae as the price of a lamb, and charged eight of these drachmae to the children: this entry especially roused our anger.[*](Here again the actual cost was probably no more than the half-share charged to the children. Here again the actual cost was probably no more than the half-share charged to the children.) And so it is, gentlemen: in the midst of heavy losses the sufferers of wrong are sometimes wounded as much by little things; for these expose in so very clear a light the wickedness of the wrongdoer.

Then for the other festivals and sacrifices he charged to their account an expenditure of more than four thousand drachmae; and he added a multitude of things which he counted in to make up his total, as though he had been named in the will as guardian of the children merely in order that he might show them accounts instead of money, and reduce them from wealth to utter poverty, and that they might forget whatever ancestral enemy they might have to wage war on their guardian for stripping them of their patrimony!