Apollodorus Against Nicostratus in the Matter of Slaves of Aresthusius (1-5)

I have no desire to bring a baseless and malicious charge; but I have filed this inventory of property because I have suffered wrong and indignity from these men and therefore thought it my duty to avenge myself upon them. Of this you will find convincing proof, men of the jury, in the amount of the valuation, and in my having filed the information in my own name. For, I take it, if I had wished to bring a malicious suit, I should not have listed slaves worth two minae and a half, the sum at which the claimant himself has fixed their value, and myself have run the risk of losing a thousand drachmae, and forfeiting the right ever again to indict anyone on my own behalf. Nor, again, was I so lacking in resources or in friends as to be unable to find some one to file the information;

but I thought it the most outrageous thing ever seen among men, that I should myself suffer the wrong, but that another should lend his name on behalf of me, the one wronged; and that this would then serve as presumptive proof to my adversaries that I am lying whenever I speak to you of our enmity; for they would say that no other man would have filed the information, if I were myself the one wronged. It was for this reason that I filed the information. And now that I have done so, if I can prove that the slaves belong to Arethusius, to whom they are stated in the information to belong, I relinquish to the state the three fourths which under the law are given to the private citizen filing the information; for myself it is enough to have taken vengeance.

If, now, there were water enough in the water-clock to permit my telling you in detail from the beginning all the benefits I have conferred on them and all the acts they have committed toward me, I am sure that you would feel more lenient toward me for my resentment against them, and would deem these men the most wicked of humankind. As it is, however, even double the amount of water that I now have would be insufficient. I shall therefore relate to you the greatest and most flagrant of their wrongdoings, and those which gave rise to the filing of the information; the bulk of them I shall pass over.

Nicostratus, whom you see here in court, men of the jury, was a neighbor of mine in the country, and a man of my own age. We had long known each other, but after my father’s death, when I went to live in the country, where I still live, we had much more to do with one another, since we were neighbors and men of the same age. As time went on we became very intimate; indeed I came to feel on such intimate terms with him that he never failed to win any favor he asked of me; and he, on his part, was useful to me in looking after my affairs and managing them, and whenever I was abroad on public service as trierarch, or on any private business of my own, I used to leave him in charge of everything on the farm.

It happened that I was sent as trierarch round the Peloponnesus, and from thence I had to carry to Sicily the ambassadors whom the people had elected. I was forced to set sail in haste, so I wrote to Nicostratus, telling him that I had to put to sea, and that I should not be able to come home for fear of delaying the ambassadors; and I charged him to look after the administration of matters at home, as he had done before.