Apollodorus Against Stephanus, Charged with False Testimony I (74-76)

But for himself he has not scrupled to marry his mistress, and he dwells as husband with her who scattered the sweatmeats over him when he was bought as a slave,[*] nor to write a clause giving himself a marriage portion of five talents in addition to the large sums of which he became master, inasmuch as they were in the custody of my mother—for why do you suppose he wrote in the will the clause and all else which she has I give to Archippê?—while he looks with indifference on my daughters, who are doomed through poverty to grow old in maidenhood with none to dower them.

If Phormio had been poor, and it had been our fortune to be wealthy, and if, in the course of nature, anything had happened to me, this fellow’s sons would have claimed my daughters in marriage—the sons of the slave would have claimed the daughters of the master! For they are their uncles, since the man married my mother; but seeing that it is we who are poor, he will not help to portion them off, but he talks and talks, and reckons up the amount of property which I possess.

For this is the most absurd thing of all. Up to this day he has never seen fit to render an account of the money of which he has defrauded me, but enters a special plea that my action is not even admissible; yet he charges against me what I have received from the estate of my fathers. Other slaves one may see called to strict account by their masters, but here we see the very opposite: the fellow, though a slave, calls his master to account, thinking thereby to show him forth as a vile fellow and a prodigal.