One of the Sons of Aristaechmus Against Nausimachus and Xenopeithes (6-10)

that, when fourteen years have elapsed from the time when they gave my father a release, and twenty-two years after they had first indicted him,[*] when my father was now dead, with whom the settlement had been made and also the guardians who after his death had charge of our property, when their own mother, too, was dead, who was well-informed regarding all these matters, and the arbitrators, the witnesses, and almost everybody else, if I may so say, counting our inexperience and necessary ignorance a boon to themselves, they have instituted these suits against us, and have the audacity to make statements which are neither just nor reasonable.

They declare that they did not sell their father’s estate for the money which they received, nor did they give up the property, but that all that was left them—credits, furniture, and even money—still belongs to them. I, for my part, know by hearsay that Xenopeithes and Nausicrates[*] left their entire property in outstanding debts, and possessed very little tangible property; and that when the debts had been collected and some furniture and slaves had been sold, their guardians purchased the farms and lodging-houses, which our opponents received from them.

If there had been no dispute about these matters before, and no suit had been entered charging maladministration of the property, it would have been another story; but since these men brought suit against our father in the matter of his general conduct as guardian and recovered damages, all these matters were at that time released. For our opponents, I take it, did not bring suit for the mere name mal-administration in guardianship, but for the money; nor did the guardians buy off this name with the money which they paid, but they bought off the claims.

That, therefore, these men have no right of action against us for the debts which our father collected before the settlement, or, in general, for monies which he received by virtue of his guardianship, seeing that they have given a release for their claims, I think you have all adequately learned from the laws themselves and from the release. Moreover, that it is impossible that the collection of these funds should have been made subsequently (this is the story they are making up to lead you astray), I wish to prove.

As for my father, they cannot charge that he received them; for he died three or four months after the settlement was made with them; and that Demaretus, whom our father left as our guardian, could not have received them either (for they have written his name also in their complaint), this, too, I shall show.