7
There, so it seems, gentlemen of the jury, lay the catch, the real point of the elaborate plot. For if I used the money to buy their freedom I was simply losing whatever I gave him without suffering any serious harm. But if I bought them formally and agreed to take over their debts assuming, since I had no previous information, that these were negligible, he meant to set all his creditors and contributorsI.e., friends who had made loans to the business. The money would be repaid in instalments free of interest. Cf. §§ 9 and 11. on me, using the agreement as a trap.
8
And that is just what he did. For when I accepted his proposals he immediately took a document from his lap and began to read the contents, which were the text of an agreement with me. I listened to it being read, but my attention was concentrated on completing the business I had come for. He sealed the agreement directly in the same house, so that no one with any interest in me should hear the contents, and added with my name that of Nicon of Cephisia.
9
We went to the perfumery and deposited the document with Lysicles of Leuconoe, and I put down the forty minas and so made the purchase. When this was settled I was visited by the creditors, to whom Midas owed money, and the contributors too, who talked things over with me. In three months all the debts had been declared, with the result that, including repayment of contributions, I owed, as I said just now, about five talents.
