19
But in regard to these statements and this accusation, observe what convincing proofs one could advance to show that he is lying. In the first place, men of Athens, what man would have accepted a distribution of his inheritance, if he had not papers from which he could determine the amount of estate left him? No man, assuredly. Yet it is eighteen years, Apollodorus, since you accepted the distribution, and you cannot show that you at any time made any complaint about the papers.
20
In the second place, when Pasicles had come of age, and was receiving the report of his guardians’ administration, what man, even though he shrank from accusing his mother with his own lips of having destroyed the papers, would have failed to reveal the fact to his brother, so that through him it might have been thoroughly investigated? In the third place, what were the papers upon which you based the action which you brought? For the plaintiff has brought suits against many citizens, and has recovered large sums of money, charging in his complaints, So and so has injured me by not paying back to me the money which my father’s papers show he owed the latter at his death.
21
But, if the papers had been made away with, on the basis of what papers did he commence his suits?
21
In proof that I am speaking the truth in this, you have heard the distribution which he accepted, and the evidence in proof of it has been presented to you. The clerk will now read you the depositions having to do with these actions. Please take the depositions.
21
The Depositions
21
In these complaints, then, he has admitted that he had received his father’s papers; for he surely would not say that he was bringing baseless charges, or that he was suing these men for what they did not owe.
