18
This challenge, then, we tendered to this Dionysodorus again and again, and we exposed the challenge to public view over a period of many days. He, however, declared that we must be absolute simpletons, if we supposed him to be senseless enough to go before an arbitrator—who would most certainly condemn him to pay the debt—when he might come into court bringing the money with him, and then, if he could hoodwink you he would go back keeping possession of what was another’s, and if he could not, he would then pay the money. Thus he showed that he had no confidence in the justice of his case, but that he wished to make trial of you.
19
You have heard, then, men of the jury, what Dionysodorus has done; and as you have heard I fancy you have long been amazed at his audacity, and have wondered upon what in the world he relies in coming into court. For is it not the height of audacity, when a man who has borrowed money from the port of Athens,
20
and has expressly agreed in writing that his ship shall return to your port, or that, if she does not, he shall pay double the amount, has not brought the ship to the Peiraeus and does not pay his debt to the lenders; and as for the grain, has unladed that and sold it at Rhodes, and then despite all this dares to look into your faces?
21
But hear what he says in reply to this. He alleges that the ship was disabled on the voyage from Egypt, and that for this reason he was obliged to touch at Rhodes and unlade the grain there. And as a proof of this he states that he chartered ships from Rhodes and shipped some of his goods to Athens. This is one part of his defence, and here is another.
