Against Athenogenes (6-7)

But this is the chief advantage: under the present arrangement they would think that it was I who had freed them; whereas, if you buy them formally first and then liberate them afterwards at your leisure, they will be doubly grateful to you. However, he said, you will become responsible for what money they owe: a debt for some sweet oil to Pancalus and Procles[*] and any other sums which customers have invested in the perfumery in the ordinary course. It is a trifling amount and much more than counterbalanced by the stocks in the shop, sweet oil, scent-boxes, myrrh (and he mentioned the names of some other things), which will easily cover all the debts.

There, so it seems, gentlemen of the jury, lay the catch, the real point of the elaborate plot. For if I used the money to buy their freedom I was simply losing whatever I gave him without suffering any serious harm. But if I bought them formally and agreed to take over their debts assuming, since I had no previous information, that these were negligible, he meant to set all his creditors and contributors[*] on me, using the agreement as a trap.