[32]
That is what he said; but it is worth your while to
learn the abominable wickedness of these men, and their mendacity. Concerning
the vessel which was wrecked they had no contract,1 but it was another man who had
lent from Athens upon the freight to Pontus, and on the vessel itself.
（Antipater was the lender's name; he was a Citian2 by birth.） The
Coan wine （eighty jars of wine that had turned sour） and the
salt fish were being transported in the vessel for a certain farmer from
Panticapaeum to Theodosia for the use of the laborers on his farm. Why, then, do
they keep alleging these excuses? It is in no wise fitting.
1 The speaker's contention is that even if the ship was wrecked, that fact does not release Lacritus from his obligation; for the loan made by Androcles was secured not by the ship, which appears to have been mortgaged to Antipater, but upon the cargo of Mendaean wine and the return cargo which was to have been brought from Pontus. The wares lost （by jettison when the ship was damaged） were not, the speaker holds, the return cargo. That the ship was not actually lost seems a necessary inference from Dem. 35.28, where it is stated that she returned to Athens.
2 Citium is a port in Cyprus.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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