12
When we had our meeting—what need is there to tell you all the details?—the men came who claimed to have made loans to the plaintiff on the security of the mining property and the slaves, which we bought from Mnesicles; and there was nothing straightforward or honest about them. Then, when they were convicted of falsehood in all their statements and Mnesicles confirmed our having bought the property, they offered us a challenge, assuming that we should not accept it, either to take all our money from them and withdraw, or to settle with them by paying their claims; for the security which we held was, they claimed, worth far more than the sums we had lent.
13
When I heard this, on the spur of the moment and without even taking thought, I agreed to take my money, and I persuaded Evergus to adopt the same course. But when the time came for us to receive our money, the matter having been brought to this conclusion, the people who had previously made the offer declared then that they would not pay us unless we became vendors to them of the property, and in this point anyway, men of Athens, they were prudent; for they saw in what baseless and malicious charges we were involved by this fellow.
13
To prove that I am speaking the truth in this, take, please, these depositions also.
13
The Depositions
14
When the matter stood thus, and the people whom the plaintiff had introduced to us would not give up the money, and it was clear that we were rightfully in possession of what we had purchased, he begged, and implored, and besought us to sell the property. As he made this demand and begged me most earnestly—there is nothing he did not do—I gave way in this matter also.
