On the Property of Aristophanes (31-35)

Again, consider this: in all other cases where you have confiscated the property, not merely have you had no sale of furniture, but even the doors were torn away from the apartments; whereas we, as soon as the confiscation was declared and my sister had left the place, posted a guard in the deserted house, in order that neither door-timber nor utensils nor anything else might be lost. Personal effects were realized to the value of over a thousand drachmae,

—more than you had received in any previous instance. Moreover, we now repeat our former offer to pledge ourselves to the Commissioners, in the most binding terms available to man, that we hold no part of Aristophanes’ estate, but are owed from it the dowry of my sister and seven minae which he got from my father at his departure.

Could human beings have a more miserable fate than to lose their own property, and then to be supposed to hold that of the mulcted party? And the greatest hardship of all for us will be that, having taken charge of my sister and her many children, we must rear them with no means available even for ourselves, if you deprive us of what we now have.

But of course you are all aware that Conon held the command, and Nicophemus carried out his instructions. Now it is probable that Conon allotted to others but a small proportion of his prizes; so that if it be thought that Nicophemus’s gains were great, it must be allowed that Conon’s were more than ten times greater.