Nicobulus Against Pantaenetus (46-50)

And yet up to this day he has never had the case examined before the Archon, whom the law appoints to have charge of such matters, and before whom the wrongdoer runs the risk of having punishment or fine adjudged against him, while by the prosecutor redress is sought without risk;[*] nor has he impeached either me or Evergus as wrongdoers, but he made these charges in the court-room, and secured a verdict for two talents.

For, I take it, it would have been an easy matter for Evergus, if he had known in advance (as under the laws he should have known) the charge on which he was being tried, to set forth the truth of the matter and the justice of his cause, and so win acquittal; but in a mining suit regarding matters concerning which he could never have imagined that he would be accused, it was hard to find, offhand, means to free himself from the false charges; and the indignation[*] of the jurymen, who were misled by the plaintiff, found him guilty in the matter upon which they sat in judgement.

And yet do you think that the man who deceived those jurymen will hesitate to try to deceive you?—or that he comes into court with his confidence fixed upon the facts, and not rather upon assertions and upon the witnesses who are in league with him (that foul blackguard Procles, the tall fellow there, and Stratocles, the smoothest-tongued of men and the basest), and in his readiness to weep and wail without disguise or shame?

But you are so far from deserving pity, that more than any man in the world you should rightly be detested for the deeds you have wrought—you who, owing one hundred and five minae and not being able to satisfy your creditors, and then finding men who helped you to raise the money and enabled you to do what was right by those who originally made the loan, are seeking, quite apart from the wrongs you committed against them in regard to the loan itself, also to deprive them of their civic rights. In the case of other men one may see borrowers having to give up their property, but in your case it is the lender who has come to this plight, and, having lent a talent, has been forced to pay two talents as the victim of a baseless charge;

and I, who lent forty minae, am defendant in this suit for two talents. Again, on property on which you were never able to borrow more than one hundred minae, and which you sold outright for three talents and two thousand drachmae,[*] you have, as it seems, sustained damages to the amount of four talents! From whom? From my slave, you will say. But what citizen would let himself be ousted from his own property by a slave? Or who would say that it is right that my slave be held responsible for acts, for which the plaintiff has brought action against Evergus and obtained a verdict?