Against Diogeiton (21-25)

For the father’s tomb, though he did not spend twenty-five minae of the five thousand drachmae shown, he charges half this sum to himself, and has entered half against them.[*] Then for the Dionysia,[*] gentlemen of the jury,—I do not think it irrelevant to mention this also,—he showed sixteen drachmae as the price of a lamb, and charged eight of these drachmae to the children: this entry especially roused our anger.[*] And so it is, gentlemen: in the midst of heavy losses the sufferers of wrong are sometimes wounded as much by little things; for these expose in so very clear a light the wickedness of the wrongdoer.

Then for the other festivals and sacrifices he charged to their account an expenditure of more than four thousand drachmae; and he added a multitude of things which he counted in to make up his total, as though he had been named in the will as guardian of the children merely in order that he might show them accounts instead of money, and reduce them from wealth to utter poverty, and that they might forget whatever ancestral enemy they might have to wage war on their guardian for stripping them of their patrimony!

But yet, had he wished to act justly by the children, he was free to act in accordance with the laws which deal with orphans for the guidance of incapable as well as capable guardians: he might have farmed out the estate and so got rid of a load of cares, or have purchased land and used the income for the children’s support; whichever course he had taken, they would have been as rich as anyone in Athens. But the fact is, in my opinion, that at no time has he had any notion of turning their fortune into real estate, but has meant to keep their property for himself, assuming that his own wickedness ought to be heir of the wealth of the deceased.

Most monstrous of all, gentlemen of the jury, he asserts that in sharing with Alexis, son of Aristodicus, the service of equipping a warship, he paid a contribution of forty-eight minae, and has entered half of this against these orphan children, whom the State has not only exempted during their childhood, but has freed from all public services for a year after they have been certified to be of age. Yet he, their grandfather, illegally exacts from his daughter’s children one half of his expenses in equipping a warship!

Again, he dispatched to the Adriatic a cargo of two talents’ value, and told their mother, at the moment of its sailing, that it was at the risk of the children[*]; but when it went safely through and the value was doubled,[*] He declared that the venture was his. But if he is to lay the losses to their charge, and keep the successful gains for himself, he will have no difficulty in making the account show on what the money has been spent, while he will find it easy to enrich himself from the money of others.