A Friend Pleading for Phormio (43-44)

With regard now to Phormio’s wealth and his having got it from your father’s estate, and the questions you said you were going to ask as to how Phormio acquired his fortune, you have the least right of any man in the world to speak thus. For Pasio, your father, did not acquire his fortune, any more than Phormio did, by good luck or by inheritance from his father, but he gave proof to the bankers, Antisthenes and Archestratus, who were his masters, that he was a good man and an honest, and so won their confidence.

It is remarkable what a striking thing it is in the eyes of people who are active in commercial life and in banking, when the same man is accounted industrious and is honest.[*] Well; this quality was not imparted to Pasio by his masters; he was himself honest by nature; nor did your father impart it to Phormio. It was yourself, rather than Phormio, whom he would have made honest, if he had had the power. If you do not know that for money-making the best capital of all is trustworthiness, you do not know anything at all. But, apart from all this, Phormio has in many ways shown himself useful to your father and to you, and in general to your affairs. But your insatiate greed and your character, I take it, no one could adequately express.