24
Most monstrous of all, gentlemen of the jury, he asserts that in sharing with Alexis, son of Aristodicus, the service of equipping a warship, he paid a contribution of forty-eight minae, and has entered half of this against these orphan children, whom the State has not only exempted during their childhood, but has freed from all public services for a year after they have been certified to be of age. Yet he, their grandfather, illegally exacts from his daughter’s children one half of his expenses in equipping a warship!
25
Again, he dispatched to the Adriatic a cargo of two talents’ value, and told their mother, at the moment of its sailing, that it was at the risk of the childrenIt was unlawful for a guardian to venture a ward’s money in bottomry, and the Adriatic was notoriously perilous for navigation.; but when it went safely through and the value was doubled,Hume (Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations) has remarked on the fact that a profit of 100 per cent on such a venture does not seem to have been thought extraordinary. He declared that the venture was his. But if he is to lay the losses to their charge, and keep the successful gains for himself, he will have no difficulty in making the account show on what the money has been spent, while he will find it easy to enrich himself from the money of others.
