11
As soon, then, as they had released the defendant from the lease, men of Athens, they at once divided between them the bank and the shield-factory, and Apollodorus, having the choice,By right of seniority. chose the shield-factory in preference to the bank. Yet, if the plaintiff had any private capital in the bank, why in the world should he have chosen the factory by preference? The income was not greater; nay, it was less (the factory produced a talent, and the bank, one hundred minae); nor was the property more agreeable,That is, the conduct of a manufacturing business entailed more labor and trouble than the management of a bank. assuming that he had private capital in the bank. But he had no such capital. So the plaintiff was wise in choosing the factory. For that is a property which involves no risk, while the bank is a business yielding a hazardous revenue from money which belongs to others.
12
Many proofs might one advance and set forth to show that the plaintiff’s claim to a sum of banking capital is malicious and baseless. But the strongest proof of all that Phormio received no capital is, I think, this: that Pasio is set down in the lease as debtor to the bank, not as having given banking capital to the defendant. The second proof is that the plaintiff is shown to have made no demands at the time of the distribution of the property. The third is that when he subsequently leased the same business to others for the same sum, he will be shown not to have leased any private capital of his own along with it.
13
And yet, if he had been defrauded by the defendant of capital which his father left, he would himself on that assumption have had to provide it from some other source and given it to the new lessees.If it were true that Apollodorus had been defrauded by Phormio of capital which Pasio had invested in the bank, then, when the bank was let to new lessees on the same terms as before, Apollodorus would have had to make up the missing capital from some other source.
