Trials From Classical Athens by Carey Christopher

Author:Carey, Christopher.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

[1] The Phaselites are not up to anything new, judges, but their usual practice. These people are exceedingly clever at borrowing money in the trading zone and then, when they've received it and made a maritime contract, straight away they've forgotten the contract and the laws and their duty to repay what they received. [2] They think that if they pay it back they've virtually lost their own property, and instead of repayment they invent sophistries and special pleas and excuses; they are the most villainous and dishonest people in the world. Here is proof of this: though many people, both Greek and barbarian, come to your trading zone, there are regularly more lawsuits involving Phaselites alone than the rest put together.

[3] This is the way they are. Now, judges, I loaned money to this man's brother Artemon under the trading laws for a voyage to the Pontos and back to Athens. Since Artemon died before he could repay the money to me, I have brought this suit against Lakritos here under the same laws under which I made the contract, [4] on the grounds that my opponent is Artemon's brother and possesses all his property, both what he left behind here and what he owned in Phaselis, and is the heir to his whole estate. He could not demonstrate any law that allows him to own his brother's property and to have dealt with it as he saw fit but not to pay back money belonging to others while claiming that he is not his heir but has disowned the estate. [5] Such is Lakritos’ unscrupulousness. But I urge you, judges, to give me a kindly hearing on this issue; and if I prove that he has done wrong to us, the lenders, and to you no less, help as is right.

[6] For myself, judges, I had no personal knowledge at all of these people. But Thrasymedes son of Diophantes, the one from Sphettos, and his brother Melanippos are friends of mine, and we are as close as it is possible to be. They approached me in the company of Lakritos here, whom they had got to know somehow (I don't know how), [7] and they asked me to lend money for a voyage to the Black Sea to Artemon, his brother, and Apollodoros, so that they could engage in trade. Even Thrasymedes, judges, was ignorant of this man's unscrupulousness; he thought they were decent men and exactly the sort of people they pretended and claimed to be, and he believed they would do all that Lakritos here promised and undertook. [8] He was, it transpires, completely deceived; he had no idea what sort of beasts he was dealing with in these people. I in turn was persuaded by Thrasymedes and his brother, and by this man Lakritos who undertook that I would receive all that was my due from his brothers, and I loaned thirty silver mnai together with a guest-friend of ours from Karystos. [9] Now I

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