On the Estate of Dicaeogenes (40-44)

Amongst his intimates he deprived Melas the Egyptian, who had been his friend from youth upwards, of money which he had received from him, and is now his bitterest enemy; of his other friends some have never received back money which they lent him, others were deceived by him and did not receive what he had promised to give them if he should have the estate adjudicated to him.

And yet, gentlemen, our forefathers, who acquired and bequeathed this property, performed every kind of choregic office, contributed large sums for your expenses in war, and never ceased acting as trierarchs. As evidence of all these services they set up in the temples out of the remainder of their property,[*] as memorials of their civic worth, dedications, such as tripods which they had received as prizes for choregic victories in the temple of Dionysus, or in the shrine of Pythian Apollo.

Furthermore, by dedicating on the Acropolis the first-fruits of their wealth, they have adorned the shrine with bronze and marble statues, numerous, indeed, to have been provided out of a private fortune. They themselves died fighting for their country; Dicaeogenes (I.), the son of Menexenus, the father of my grandfather Menexenus (I.), while acting as general when the battle took place at Eleusis;[*] Menexenus (I.), his son, in command of the cavalry at Spartolus in the territory of Olynthus;[*] Dicaeogenes (II.), the son of Menexenus (I.), while in command of the Paralus[*] at Cnidus.

It is the property of these men, Dicaeogenes, that you inherited and have wickedly and disgracefully squandered, and having converted it into money you now plead poverty. On what did you spend it? For you have obviously not expended anything on the city or your friends. You have certainly not ruined yourself by keeping horses—for you have never possessed a horse worth more than three minae—, nor by keeping racing teams—for you never owned even a pair of mules in spite of possessing so many farms and estates. Nor again did you ever ransom a prisoner of war.

You have never even transported to the Acropolis the dedications upon which Menexenus (I.)[*] expended three talents and which his death prevented him from setting up, but they are still knocking about in the sculptor's workshop; and thus, while you yourself claimed the possession of money to which you had no title, you never rendered up to the gods statues which were theirs by right.