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he discovered a household that was rich and ill-managed, the head of which was a woman, proud and of poor judgment. A fatherless young man, half crazy, was managing the estate, Aristarchus, son of Moschus. Demosthenes, pretending to be a lover of his, invited the young man to this intimacy, filling him up with empty hopes, assuring him that without any delay whatever he should become the foremost man in public life, and he showed him a list of names.Doubtless a list of young men who had studied oratory with Demosthenes and become successful public men. So the Scholiast. So he became prompter and teacher of the young man in conduct which has made Aristarchus an exile from his fatherland,
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while Demosthenes, getting hold of the money that was to support him in in his banishment, has cheated him out of three talents, and, at the hands of Aristarchus, Nicodemus of Aphidna has met a violent death, poor man! after having had both eyes knocked out, and that tongue cut off with which he had been wont to speak out freely, trusting in the laws and in you.The murdered man, Nicodemus, was a friend and supporter of Demosthenes’ influential personal and political enemies, Meidias and Eubulus, and had taken part in an unsuccessful attempt to convict Demosthenes of desertion in the Euboean campaign. When he was found murdered, Meidias made repeated attempts to throw suspicion on Demosthenes.
