On the Estate of Dicaeogenes (35-39)

Dicaeogenes (III.), gentlemen, has no claim to your pity for misfortune or poverty, nor does he deserve any kindness for having done any good service to the city; he has no title to your consideration on either of these grounds, as I will prove to you, gentlemen. I will show you that he is at once rich and the meanest of men in his relations both to the city and to his kinsmen and to his friends. Having received by your verdict the property which brought in a yearly revenue of eighty minae, and having enjoyed it for ten years, he refuses to admit that he has saved money out of it nor can he show how he expended it, gentlemen.

It is well worth your while to look into the matter. He acted as choregus for his tribe at the Dionysia and was fourth; as choregus in the tragic contest and Pyrrhic dances he was last.[*] These were the only public services which he undertook and then only under compulsion, and this was the fine show he made as choregus in spite of his great wealth! Moreover, though so many trierarchs were appointed, he never acted in this capacity by himself nor has he ever been associated in it with another[*] in all those years of crisis; yet others possessing less capital than he has income, act as trierarchs.

Yet, gentlemen, his large fortune was not bequeathed to him by his father but given to him by your verdict; so that, even if he were not an Athenian citizen, he was in duty bound for this reason alone to do the city good service. Though so many extraordinary contributions for the cost of the war and the safety of the city have been made by all the citizens, Dicaeogenes (III.) has never contributed anything, except that after the capture of Lechaeum,[*] at the request of another citizen, he promised in the public assembly a subscription of 300 drachmas, a smaller sum than Cleonymus the Cretan.[*]

This sum he promised but did not pay, and his name was posted on a list of defaulters in front of the statues of the Eponymous Heroes,[*] which was headed: “These are they who voluntarily promised the people to contribute money for the salvation of the city and failed to pay the amounts promised.” Indeed, gentlemen, what ground is there for astonishment that he deceived me, a single citizen, when he acted in this manner towards all of you united in assembly? Of these facts I will now produce witnesses before you.

Witnesses

Such are the manner and extent of the public services which Dicaeogenes has rendered to the city out of so large a fortune.

Towards his relatives he is the sort of man that you see; some of us he robbed of our property because he was stronger than we were, others he allowed to resort to paid employment through lack of the necessities of life. Everyone saw his mother seated in the shrine of Eileithyia[*] and calling down upon him reproaches which I am ashamed to mention but which he was not ashamed to justify.