On the Property of Aristophanes (46-50)

For example, Ischomachus during his life was considered by everyone to own more than seventy talents, as I am told: his two sons, on his death, had less than ten talents to divide between them. Stephanus, son of Thallus, was reported to own more than fifty talents; but when he died his fortune was found to be about eleven talents.

Again, the estate of Nicias was expected to be not less than a hundred talents,— most of it in his house; but when Niceratus[*] was dying, he said that he in his turn was not leaving any silver or gold, and the property that he left to his son is worth no more than fourteen talents.

Then Callias,[*] son of Hipponicus, just after his father’s death, was thought to have more in his possession than any other Greek, and the story goes that his grandfather valued his own property at two hundred talents; yet his ratable property stands today at less than two talents. And you all know how Cleophon[*] for many years had all the affairs of the State in his hands, and was expected to have got a great deal by his office; but when he died this money was nowhere to be found,

and moreover his relatives both by blood and by marriage, in whose hands he would have left it, are admittedly poor people. So it is evident that we have been greatly deceived both in men of hereditary riches and in those who have recently gained a name for wealth. The cause of this, in my opinion, is that people make light of stating that such an one has got many talents by his office. As to the common statements about dead people, I am not so much surprised, since there is no disproof to fear from them; but what of the lies with which they assail the living?

Why, you yourselves were told of late in the Assembly that Diotimus[*] had got forty talents more from the ship-masters and merchants[*] than he himself admitted; and when he rendered an account on his return, and was indignant at being slandered in his absence, nobody put that matter to the proof, although the State was in need of money,