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!

But yet, had he wished to act justly by the children, he was free to act in accordance with the laws which deal with orphans for the guidance of incapable as well as capable guardians: he might have farmed out the estate and so got rid of a load of cares, or have purchased land and used the income for the children’s support; whichever course he had taken, they would have been as rich as anyone in Athens. But the fact is, in my opinion, that at no time has he had any notion of turning their fortune into real estate, but has meant to keep their property for himself, assuming that his own wickedness ought to be heir of the wealth of the deceased.

Most monstrous of all, gentlemen of the jury, he asserts that in sharing with Alexis, son of Aristodicus, the service of equipping a warship, he paid a contribution of forty-eight minae, and has entered half of this against these orphan children, whom the State has not only exempted during their childhood, but has freed from all public services for a year after they have been certified to be of age. Yet he, their grandfather, illegally exacts from his daughter’s children one half of his expenses in equipping a warship!

Again, he dispatched to the Adriatic a cargo of two talents’ value, and told their mother, at the moment of its sailing, that it was at the risk of the children[*](It was unlawful for a guardian to venture a ward’s money in bottomry, and the Adriatic was notoriously perilous for navigation.); but when it went safely through and the value was doubled,[*](Hume (Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations) has remarked on the fact that a profit of 100 per cent on such a venture does not seem to have been thought extraordinary.) He declared that the venture was his. But if he is to lay the losses to their charge, and keep the successful gains for himself, he will have no difficulty in making the account show on what the money has been spent, while he will find it easy to enrich himself from the money of others.

To set the reckoning before you in detail, gentlemen of the jury, would be a lengthy affair; but when with some trouble I had got him to hand over the balance-sheet, in the presence of witnesses I asked Aristodicus, brother of Alexis,—the latter being now dead—whether he had the account for the equipment of a warship. He told me that he had, and we went to his house and found that Diogeiton had paid Alexis a contribution of twenty-four minae towards equipping the warship.

But the expenditure that he showed was forty-eight minae, so that the children have been charged exactly the total of what he has spent.[*](Again the whole of his actual contribution (24 minae) has been charged to the children’s estate, as a half-share of an exaggerated total.) Now, what do you suppose he has done in cases of which nobody else has had cognizance, and where he managed the business alone, when in those which were conducted through others and of which information could easily be obtained he did not shrink from falsehood in mulcting his own daughter’s children to an amount of twenty-four minae? Please come forward, witnesses, in support of this.

WitnessesYou have heard the witnesses, gentlemen of the jury. I will now base my reckoning against him on the sum which he did eventually confess to holding,—seven talents and forty minae: not counting in any income, I will put down, as spent out of capital, a larger amount than anyone in the city has ever spent,—for two boys and their sister, an attendant and a maid, a thousand drachmae a year, a little less than three drachmae a day.[*](Cf. a similar estate in Dem. 27.36.)

For eight years, that amounts to eight thousand drachmae; and we are left with a balance of six talents and twenty minae. For he will not be able to show that he has either had losses by pirates, or met with failure or paid off debts.---