30
This had, I think, the following purpose. Of the effects in the house he made himself master by the will, on the ground that they had been given as a dowry with my mother, as you have just heard; but the money in the bank, about which everybody knew, and which could not be hidden, he got into his hands by representing that our father owed it, so that whatever sums he might be proved to have in his possession he might claim to have received in payment. You have perhaps imagined, because he solecizesσόλοικος is a word of narrower meaning than βάρβαρος, and is applied mainly to faults of pronunciation or mistakes in grammar, especially syntax, due to foreign origin (Sandys). It would, however, be quite futile to look for a specific error in the, very probably spurious, lease inserted in the oration. in his speech, that he is a barbarian and a man readily to be despised. The fellow is indeed a barbarian in that he hates those whom he ought to honor; but in villainy and in bringing matters to ruinThe metaphor is from house-breaking. he is second to none.
31
(To the clerk.) Take the lease and read it—the lease which they put in, as they did the will, by means of a challenge.
31
The Lease of The Bank
31
On the following terms Pasio has let the bank to Phormio: Phormio is to pay to the sons of Pasio as rental for the bank two talents and forty minae each year above the daily expenditure, and it shall not be lawful for Phormio to carry on a banking business independently unless he first obtains the consent of the sons of Pasio. And Pasio owes the bank eleven talents upon the deposits.
