16
I shall show you, gentlemen, by convincing proofs that there is no truth in what they say. For if, as they allege, this estate had been insolvent, they would never have expended any money upon it—for it was not their business to do so, but those who had the right to claim my mother's hand ought to have concerned themselves with the matter—nor would they have introduced a son as the adopted child of Aristarchus (I.) to inherit his estate, if they were not going to get any advantage but only suffer considerable loss.
17
Other people indeed, when they have had monetary losses, introduce their children into other families in order that they may not share in their parents' loss of civic rights; and did my opponents adopt themselves into a succession and family which was insolvent, in order that they might lose in addition what they already possessed? Nay, it is impossible the estate was unencumbered and descended to my mother, and these men, in their greed for money and their anxiety to rob her, devised all this story.
