A Friend Pleading for Phormio (11-15)

As soon, then, as they had released the defendant from the lease, men of Athens, they at once divided between them the bank and the shield-factory, and Apollodorus, having the choice,[*] chose the shield-factory in preference to the bank. Yet, if the plaintiff had any private capital in the bank, why in the world should he have chosen the factory by preference? The income was not greater; nay, it was less (the factory produced a talent, and the bank, one hundred minae); nor was the property more agreeable,[*] assuming that he had private capital in the bank. But he had no such capital. So the plaintiff was wise in choosing the factory. For that is a property which involves no risk, while the bank is a business yielding a hazardous revenue from money which belongs to others.

Many proofs might one advance and set forth to show that the plaintiff’s claim to a sum of banking capital is malicious and baseless. But the strongest proof of all that Phormio received no capital is, I think, this: that Pasio is set down in the lease as debtor to the bank, not as having given banking capital to the defendant. The second proof is that the plaintiff is shown to have made no demands at the time of the distribution of the property. The third is that when he subsequently leased the same business to others for the same sum, he will be shown not to have leased any private capital of his own along with it.

And yet, if he had been defrauded by the defendant of capital which his father left, he would himself on that assumption have had to provide it from some other source and given it to the new lessees.[*]

To prove that I speak the truth in this, and that Apollodorus subsequently leased the bank to Xeno and Euphraeus, and Euphro, and Callistratus, and that he delivered no private capital to them either, but that they leased only the deposits and the right to the profits accruing from them, take, please, the deposition which proves these matters, and proves also that he chose the shield-factory.

The Deposition

Evidence has been submitted to you, men of Athens, that they[*] granted a lease to these men also, and gave over to them no private banking-capital; and that they gave them their freedom,[*] as if having received great benefits from them; and at that time they went to law neither with them nor with Phormio. Indeed, as long as his mother was living, who had an accurate knowledge of all these matters, Apollodorus never made any complaint against Phormio, the defendant; but after her death he brought a malicious and baseless suit claiming three thousand drachmae in money, in addition to two thousand drachmae which she had given to Phormio’s children,[*] and a bit of underwear and a serving-girl.

Yet even here he will be shown to have said nothing of the claims which he now makes. He referred the matter for arbitration to the father of his own wife, and the husband of his wife’s sister, and to Lysinus and Andromenes,[*] and they induced Phormio to make him a present of the three thousand drachmae and the additional items, and thus to have him as a friend rather than as an enemy because of this. So the plaintiff received in all five thousand drachmae, and going to the temple of Athena,[*] gave Phormio for the second time a release from all demands.