Against Aphobus I (54-57)

Yet he who dared to make such a statement put in no evidence to prove it, but relied on his bare word, as though you would lightly give him credence. When one asks him upon what he has spent so much of my money, he says he has paid debts for me, and so represents me as poor; yet, when it pleases him, he makes me rich, as it seems, seeing that my father left such a sum of money in the house. It is easy to see, however, from many considerations that he is lying, and that there is no basis of fact in this story.

For if my father had no confidence in these men, it is plain that he would neither have entrusted to them the rest of his property, nor, if he had left this money in the way alleged, would he have told them of it. It would have been the height of madness to tell them of hidden treasure, when he was not going to make them trustees even of his visible property. But if he had confidence in them, he would not, I take it, have given into their hands the bulk of his property, and not have put them in control of this. Nor would he have entrusted this remainder to my mother to keep, and then have given her herself in marriage to this man who was one of the guardians. For it is not reasonable that he should seek to secure the money through my mother, and yet to put one of the men whom he distrusted in control both of her and of it.

Furthermore, if there were any truth in all this, do you suppose Aphobus would not have taken my mother to wife, bequeathed to him as she was by my father? He had already taken her marriage-portion—the eighty minae—as though he were going to marry her; but he subsequently married the daughter of Philonides of Melite[*] But if there had been four talents in the house and in her custody, as he alleges, don’t you imagine he would have raced to get possession both of her and of them.

Would he have joined with his co-trustees in so shamefully plundering my visible property, which many of you knew had been left me, and have refrained, when he had the chance, from seizing a fund to the evidence of which you would not be able to testify? Who can believe this? It is impossible, men of the jury; it is impossible. No; my father entrusted to these men all the property which he left, and the defendant will tell this story, that I may meet with less compassion from you.