On the Olive Stump (6-10)

For you are all aware that, among the numerous troubles that have been caused by the war, the outlying districts were ravaged by the Lacedaemonians,[*] while the nearer were plundered by our friends; so how can it be just that I should be punished now for the disasters that then befell the city?

And in particular, this plot of land, as having been confiscated during the war, was unsold for over three years: it is not surprising if they uprooted the sacred olives at a time in which we were unable to safeguard even our personal property. You are aware, gentlemen—especially those of you who have the supervision of such matters,—that many plots at that time were thick with private and sacred olive-trees which have now for the most part been uprooted, so that the land has become bare; and although the same people have owned these plots in the peace as in the war, you do not think fit to punish them for the up-rooting done by others.

And yet, if you exculpate those who have cultivated the land throughout the whole period, surely those who bought it in the time of the peace ought to leave your court unpunished.

he cultivated it for two years, and had taken over no olive-tree, either private or sacred, nor any olive-stump. In the third year it was worked by Demetrius here for a twelvemonth; in the fourth I let it to Alcias, a freedman of Antisthenes, who is dead. After that Proteas too hired it in the same state during three years. Now, please step this way, witnesses.