Plea of Chrysipus and Partner Against Phormio (41-42)

further, that he was not well off, and not so foolish as to pay thirty-nine minae instead of twenty-six hundred drachmae; and besides all this, that when, as he says, he paid the money to Lampis he summoned neither my slave nor my partner, who was at the time in Bosporus, as a witness. Again, Lampis himself is shown to have testified to me, before he was corrupted by Phormio, that he had not received the money.

Yet,[*] if Phormio were thus to prove his case point by point, I do not see what better defence he could have made. But that the action is admissible the law itself solemnly declares, when it maintains that mercantile actions are those for contracts made at Athens or for the Athenian market, and not only those made at Athens, but all that are made for the purpose of a voyage to Athens.

Please take the laws.

The Laws