Apollodorus Against Nicostratus in the Matter of Slaves of Aresthusius (11-15)

Do you, therefore, he said, provide for me the amount which is lacking before the thirty days have passed, in order that what I have already paid, the thousand drachmae, may not be lost, and that I myself be not liable to seizure. I shall make a collection from my friends, he said, and when I have got rid of the strangers, I shall pay you in full whatever you shall have lent me. You know, he said, that the laws enact that a person ransomed from the enemy shall be the property of the ransomer, if he fail to pay the redemption money.

When I heard these words of Nicostratus, having no idea that he was lying, I answered, as was natural for a young man who was an intimate friend, and who was far from thinking that he would be defrauded, Nicostratus, in time past I was a true friend to you, and now in your misfortunes I have helped you to the full extent of my power. But since at the moment you are unable to find the whole amount due, I indeed have no funds on hand, nor have I money any more than yourself, but I grant you a loan of whatever part of my property you choose, for you to mortgage for the balance of your debt, and to use the money without interest for a year, and to pay off the strangers. When you have made the collection from your friends, pay off my mortgage, as you yourself propose.

Hearing this, Nicostratus thanked me, and bade me to proceed with the matter with all speed before the expiration of the days in the course of which he said he must pay the ransom. Accordingly I mortgaged my lodging-house for sixteen minae, to Arcesas of Pambotadae,[*] whom Nicostratus himself introduced to me, and he lent me the money at the interest rate of eight obols a month for each mina.[*] But, when Nicostratus had got the money, so far from showing any gratitude for what I had done for him, he immediately began to lay a plot against me to rob me of my money and become my enemy, in order that I might be at a loss how to deal with the matter, since I was young and without experience in affairs, and might not exact from him the sum for which the lodging-house had been mortgaged, but might forgive him the debt.

Accordingly he first conspired against me with some persons with whom I was at law, and bound himself by an oath to support them; then, after my action against them had commenced, he divulged to them my arguments, with which he was acquainted, and he entered me as a debtor to the public treasury to the amount of six hundred and ten drachmae, as a fine for non-production of property (although no citation had been served upon me), having got the case brought on through the agency of Lycidas the miller. As witnesses against me to attest the citation, he entered the name of his own brother, this Arethusius to whom these slaves belong, and another person; and they were prepared, in the event of my bringing to a preliminary hearing the suits which I had entered against my relatives[*] who were wronging me, to lay an information against me, as being a debtor to the treasury, and throw me into prison.

And more than all this, he who had secured a judgement against me for six hundred and ten drachmae, when no citation had been served upon me, and had entered the names of false witnesses to the citation, made a forcible entry into my house and carried off all the furniture to the value of more than twenty minae; he did not leave a thing. I thought it my duty to avenge myself, and after paying the debt to the treasury on hearing of the fine, I was proceeding to indict the one who admitted that he had cited me to appear (that is, Arethusius), on a charge of false citation, as the law directs. He, however, came to my farm by night, cut off all the choice fruit-grafts that were there, and the tree-vines as well, and broke down the nursery-beds of olive trees set in rows round about, making worse havoc than enemies in war would have done.