Averfion.

Pity.

I should never have given my consent, that it should be litigated before you. For it seems to me shameful, that near relations should commence prosecutions against one another; and I know, that, in such trials, not only the aggressors, but even those who resent injuries too impatiently, must appear to you in a disadvantageous light. But the plaintiffs, who have been defrauded of a very large sum of money, and cruelly injured by one who ought to have been the last to hurt them; have applied to me as a relation, to plead their cause, and procure them redress. And I thought I could not decently excuse myself from undertaking the patronage of persons in such distressful circumstances, with whom I had such close conApology. nections. For the sister of the plaintiffs, the niece of Diogiton the defendant, is my wife.

Accufing.

Pity.
Apology.

Pity.

When the plaintiffs intreated ine, as they did often, to undertake the management of the suit, I advised them to refer the difference between them and their uncle the defendant, to Averfion. private arbitration; thinking it the interest of both parties to conceal, as much as possible, from the knowledge of the public, that there was Accufing, any dispute between them. But as Diogiton knew, that it was easy to prove him guilty of detaining the property of the plaintiff's his nephews, he foresaw, that it would, by no means answer his purpose, to submit his cause to the decision of arbitrators. He has, therefore, determined to proceed to the utmost extremity of injustice, at the hazard of the consequences of a prosecution.

Submiffion.
Intreaty.

Pity.

Blame.

Submiffion.

I most humbly implore you, venerable judges, to grant the plaintiffs redress, if I shew you, as I hope I shall, in the most satisfactory manner, that the defendant, though so nearly related to the unhappy orphans, the plaintiffs, has treated them in such a manner, as would be shameful among absolute strangers.

I beg leave to lay before you, venerable judges, the subject of the present prosecution, as follows:

chil-ka

Diodotus and Diogiton were brothers, the chil-Narration. dren of the same father and the same mother. Upon their father's decease, they divided between them his moveables; but his real estate they enjoyed conjunctly. Diodotus growing rich, Diogiton offered him his only daughter in marriage, (1) By her Diodotus had two sons and a daughter. Diodotus happening afterwards to be enrolled, in his turn, to go to the war under Thrasyllus, he called together his wife, his brother's daughter, and his wife's brother, and his own brother, who was likewise his father-in-law, and both uncle and grandfather to his children. He thought, he could not trust the care of his children in properer hands, than those of his brother. He leaves in his custody, his will, with five talents (2) of silver. He gives him an account of seven talents, and forty mine besides, which were out at interest, and a thousand mine, which were due to him by a person in the Chersonesus, He had ordered in his will, that in case of his death, one talent, and the household furniture, should be his wife's. He bequeathed, farther, to his daughter, one talent, and twenty mine, and thirty Cyzicenian stateres, and the rest of his estate equally between his sons. Settling his affairs thus, and leaving a copy of his will, he sets out along with the army. He dies at Ephe- Accufing. sus.-Diogiton conceals from his daughter the death of her husband. He gets into his hands the will of his deceased brother, by pretending, that it was necessary for him to shev it as a voucher, in order to his transacting some affairs for his brother, during his absence. At length, when he thought the decease of his brother could not much longer be concealed, he formally declares it. The family goes into mourning. They

(1) Among the ancients, marriage was allowed between perfons very nearly related.

(2) See for the value of talents, minæ, drachmæ, and stateres. Gronou, DE PECUN, VET.

stay one year at Piræum where their moveables were. In this time the produce of all that could be sold of the effects, being spent, he sends the children to town, and gives his daughter, the widow of his brother Diodotus, to a second husband, and with her five thousand drachme, of which the husband returns him one thousand as a present. When the eldest son came to man's estate, about eight years after the departure of Accufing. Diodotus, Diogiton calls the children together; tells them, that their father had left them twenty mine of silver and thirty stateres. "I have Pretended laid out (says he) of my own money, for your concern, maintenance and education, a considerable sum.

Advising.

Diftrefs.

Intreaty.

Narration.

Nor did I grudge it, while I was in flourishing circumstances, and could afford it. But, by unforeseen and irremediable misfortunes, I am reduced to an incapacity of continuing my kindness to you. Therefore, as you (speaking to the eldest son) are now of an age to shift for yourself, I would advise you to resolve upon some employment, by which you may gain a subsistence.

The poor fatherless children were thunder-struck, upon hearing this barbarous speech. They fled in tears to their mother, and with her, came to request my protection. Finding themselves stripped of the estate left them by their father, and reduced by their hard hearted uncle and grandfather, to absolute beggary, they intreated, that I would not desert them too; but for the sake of their sister, my wife, would undertake their defence. The mother begged, that I would bring about a meeting of the relations, to reason the matter with her father; and said, that though she had never before spoke in any large company, especially of men, she would endeavour to lay before them the distresses aud injuries of her family.

Diogiton, being with difficulty brought to the meeting, the mother of the plaintiff's asked him, Accufing. how he could have the heart to use her sons in

such a manner. "Are you not, Sir, (says she) Remonftr. the uncle and the grandfather of the two fatherless youths? Are they not the children of your own brother, and of your own daughter? How could they be more nearly related to you, unless they were your own sons? And, though you despised all human authority, you aught to reverence the gods, who are witnesses of the trust reposed in you by the deceased father of the unhappy youths.' She then enumerated the several sums, the pro- Narration. perty of the deceased, which had been received by Diogiton, and charged him with them, producing authentic evidence for every particular.

"You Accufing.

have driven, (says she) out of their own house, the
children of your own daughter, in rags, unfur-
nished with the common decencies of life. You
have deprived them of the effects, and of the
money left them by their father. But you want
to enrich the children you have had by my step!/
mother; which, without doubt, you might law-
fully and properly do, if it were not at the expense,
and to the utter ruin of those, whose fortunes
were deposited in your hands, and whom, from
affluence, you want to reduce to beggary, im- \\
piously despising the authority of the gods, in-
juring your own daughter, and violating the sa-
cred will of the dead."

Severe

charge.

Pity.

Blame.

Pity.

The distressed mother having vented her grief in such bitter complaints as these, we were all, by sympathy, so touched with her afflictions, and the cruelty of her injurious father, that, when we considered, in our own minds, the hard usage which the young innocents had met with, when we remembered the deceased Diodotus, and thought how unworthy a guardian he had chosen for his children, there was not one of us who could refrain from tears. And I persuade myself, venerable Judges, that you will not be unaffected with so calamitous a case, when you come to consider attentively the various aggravations of the Accufing.

defendant's proceedings. Such unfaithfulness, in so solemn a trust, were it to pass unpunished, and consequently, to become common, would destroy all confidence among mankind, so that nobody would know how, or to whom, he could commit the management of his affairs, in his absence, or after his death. The defendant, at first, would have denied his having had any effects of his brother's left in his hands. And when he found, he could not get of that way, he then produced an account of sums, laid out, as he pretended, by him for the children, to such a value, as is beyond all belief; no less, than seven talents of silver, Wonder. and seven thousand drachme. All this, he said, had been expended in eight years, in the clothing and maintenance of two boys, and a girl. And when he was pressed to shew how their expenses could amount to such a sum, he had the impu dence to charge five obolio a day for their table; and for shoes, and dying their clothes, (1) and for the barber, he gave in no particular account, neither by the month, nor by the year; but charged in one gross sum a talent of silver. For their father's monument, he pretends to have been at the expense of five thousand drachme, of which he charges one half to the account of the children. But it is manifest, that it could not cost twenty mina. His injustice to the children appears sufficiently in the following article alone, if there were no other proof of it. He had occasion to buy a lamb for the feast of Bacchus, which cost, as he pretends, ten drachmæ ; and of these he charges eight to the account of his wards.

Accufing.

Had the defendant been a man of any principle, he would have bethought himself of laying out to advantage the fortune left in his hands by the deceased, for the benefit of the fatherless children.

(1) In thofe fimple ages, the cloth, or ftuff, of which the clothes of perfons, even of high rank, were made, was cominonly manufa Etured, from the wool to the dying, at home.