29
Now, gentlemen, we in court, when we obliged him to renounce this property, let him off the payment of the revenue he had received from it in consideration of the public services which he had performedApparently during the period when Dicaeogenes III. held the whole estate, his fortune was such that he was obliged to undertake public burdens to which he otherwise would not have been liable. and the expenses which he had incurred on the buildings, in accordance with the decision of the judges and subsequently, under no compulsion but of our own free will, in consideration of the repairs which he had carried out, gave him as a special gift, in addition to his third share of the estate, the town-house which he sold to Philonicus for 5000 drachmae.
30
We made Dicaeogenes (III.) this present not because of his honesty, but as a proof that we have more regard for our relatives, even though they may be thorough rascals, than for money. For, indeed, on an earlier occasion, when it was in our power to punish Dicaeogenes (III.) and deprive him of his property, we did not wish to possess ourselves of anything which belonged to him but were satisfied with merely obtaining what was our own. He, on the other hand, when he had us in his power, robbed us of all he could and tried to ruin us, as though we were his foes and not his relatives.
