Of
 similar good fortune was Nicomedes, who came with him as a deputy, who was not allowed to enter
 the senate on any terms, but had been convicted of theft, and of defrauding his partner. For
 Lysanias, the chief man of the deputation, obtained the rank of senator; but as he showed
 himself rather too much devoted to the riches of the republic, he was convicted of peculation,
 and lost his property and his title of senator. These three men tried to render the accounts of
 even our own treasury false. For they returned themselves as having nine slaves, when they had
 in reality come without one single companion. I see at the first framing of the decree Lysanias
 was present, he, whose brother's property was sold by public order during the praetorship of
 Flaccus, because he did not pay what he owed to the people. Besides him there is Philippus, the
 son-in-law of Lysanias; and Hermobius, whose brother also, by name Poles, was convicted of
 embezzling the public money. These men say that they gave Flaccus and those who were with him fifteen thousand drachmas. I
 have to do with a most active city, and one which is an admirable hand at keeping its accounts;
 a city in which not a farthing can be disposed of without the intervention of five praetors,
 three quaestors, and four bankers, who are elected in that city by the burgesses. Of all that
 number not one has been brought hither as a witness; and when they return that money as having
 been given to Flaccus by name, they say that they gave him also a still larger sum, entered as
 having been given for the repair of a temple. But this is not a very consistent story; for
 either everything ought to have been kept secret or else everything ought to have been returned
 without any disguise. When they enter the money as having been given to Flaccus, naming him
 expressly, they fear nothing, they apprehend nothing. When they return the money as having been
 given for a public work, then all of a sudden those same men begin to be afraid of the very man
 whom they had despised before. If the praetor gave the money, as it is set down, he drew it from
 the quaestor, the quaestor from the public bank, the public bank derived it either from revenue
 or from tribute. All this will never be like a crime, unless you explain to me the whole
 business both with respect to the persons and to the accounts.