Apollodorus Against Stephanus, Charged with False Testimony I (80-82)

Do you, then, who perform acts like these, and who have given such manifest proofs of your outrageous conduct, dare to scrutinize the manner of life of anyone else? By day you act soberly, but the whole night long you indulge in actions for which death is the penalty. He is a knave, men of Athens, a knave and a villain, and has been such from of old, ever since he left the temple of Castor and Pollux.[*] Here is the proof. If he had been honest, he would have managed his master’s business, and remained poor. But as it is, having got control of so large an amount of money that he could steal from it all that he now possesses without detection, he regards what he holds, not as a debt, but as an inherited patrimony.

And yet, by the gods, if I had led you off to prison as a thief caught in the act, piling upon your back—if this had been in any way possible—the wealth which you now possess, and had then demanded of you, if you denied having got this wealth by thievery, to refer me to the source from which you got it, to whom would you have referred me? Your father did not give it to you; you did not find it; you had not got it from some other source when you come into our family; for you were a barbarian when you were purchased. Have you, then, a man who ought to have been publicly put to death for what you have done, after saving your skin, after securing for yourself a city with our money, and after being allowed to beget children as brothers to your own masters—have you entered a special plea that our action for the sums claimed from you is inadmissible?

And, then, did you speak evil of me, and inquire what manner of man my father was? Men of Athens, who would not have been indignant at this? For my part, though it beseem me to have less of pride than any of you, yet I judge that I may at least have more than Phormio, while as for him, though there be no one else than whom he should have less, yet he should have less than I; for, assuming that we are the sort of people your words made us out to be, you, Phormio, were none the less our slave.