18
For this man Theocrines came forward, admitted the debt and in the presence of the members of the tribe promised to pay it, when he saw that we were coming up and were planning to take a copy of what stood written in the register.
18
The Decree
18
With much better reason, men of Athens, would you commend the members of the tribe Leontis, who compelled Theocrines to pay the seven minae, than this fellow himself.
19
There is now a fourth law (for I admit that I have looked closely into most of the things which the defendant has done) according to which this Theocrines owes five hundred drachmae, since his father had not paid a fine of that amount to which he had been sentenced for having sought to maintain that the maid-servant of Cephisodorus was a free woman.In such cases, if the parties could not come to an agreement as to whether the person in question was slave or free, the matter came into court. In the present instance the father of Theocrines had evidently not been able to make good his claim that the servant in question was a free woman, and had been ordered to pay damages to his adversary and a like sum (hence the compound verb, προσῶφλεν) as a fine to the state. See Meier and Schomann, 2. pp. 658 ff. No; he fixed things with Ctesicles, the speech-writer, who was acting in the matter for his opponents, in such a way that he should neither pay the damages nor be listed on the acropolis as a debtor to the state.
