21
Well then, that he released me from all claims, when I sold the slaves to him, I have proved to you; and that the laws do not allow suits to be brought in such cases you have heard from the law which has just been read. However, that no one of you, men of Athens, may suppose that it is because I am at a disadvantage regarding the rights of the matters at issue that I have recourse to this special plea, I propose to show you that in every one of his charges against me his statements are false.
22
Read the complaint itself, which he brings against me.
22
The Complaint
22
Nicobulus has harmed me by laying a plot against me and against my property, having ordered Antigenes, his slave, to take away from my slave the silver which he was bringing to be paid to the state for the mining property which I bought for ninety minae,Presumably the amount due to the state for the purchase of the mine, though the sum differs from the amount secured by the mortgage. and having also caused me to be inscribed as debtor to the treasury for double that amount.
23
Stop reading. All these charges which he has now lodged against me he previously made against Evergus, and won his suit. Now evidence has been brought before you in the opening of my speech that I was not in the country when these men quarrelled with one another; but the fact is clear from the complaint itself. For he nowhere stated that I have done any of these things, but, suggesting that I laid a plot against him and against his property, he declares that I ordered my slave to commit these acts; and in this he lies. For how could I have given this order, seeing that at the time I set sail I could by no possibility have had knowledge of what was going to happen here?
