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ἔστιν οὖνὑπέμεινε Or. 19 § 308 ἔστιν οὖν...; ἔστιν ὅστις ἂν ..ὑπέμεινεν (Huettner).

ξύλου ..χωρίου ...γραμματείων The bench (desk or counter) .. the site (in the market-place) ... the banking-books (ledgers, &c., Or. 52 §§ 6, 14).

ὠφειλήκει τράπεζα Phormion's account is that Pasion owed 11 talents to the bank; whereas Apollodorus unfairly, as it seems, treating this sum as a deficit though it stood in Pasion's hands to the credit of the bank, denounces Phormion for having caused the bank to get into debt. [Apollodorus wishes to throw a doubt on Phormion's ever having had a lease at all on the terms now brought forward. He says he would have been a fool to pay so much for a business that was encumbered if not insolvent; and Pasion would have been equally foolish if he had let the bank to one who had managed it so badly as Phormion. P.]

εἰ γὰρ κ.τ.λ. A sophistical argument to bear out the previous clause δι᾽ ὃν ὠφειλήκει τράπεζα. It is quite true that τράπεζα ἐνεδέησε χρημάτων, but then the 11 talents in question were held by Pasion on the security of land and were part of the assets of the business.— On καθήμενον κ.τ.λ. v. Or. 36 § 7, n.

ἐν τῷ μυλῶνι So far from being made master of the rest of the household, Phormion ought to have been punished, as a slave, with hard-labour at the mill, for bad management. For the mill. as a common part of slaves' labour, cf. the Phormio of Terence II 1, 18 herus si redierit, Molendum usque in pistrino, vapulandum, habendae compedes. In Lysias Or. 1 § 18 a master threatens his θεράπαινα with the punishment μαστιγωθεῖσαν εἰς μυλῶνα ἐμπεσεῖν, and Dinarchus, contr. Dem. § 23, says that Memnon the miller was condemned to death for making a freeborn boy work in his mill. Cf. Eur. Cycl. 240 εἰς μυλῶνα καταβαλεῖν, and Pollux ἵνα κολάζονται οἱ δοῦλοι, μυλῶνες κ.τ.λ. (Hermann-Blumner, Privatalt. p. 216.) The parallel of Samson, ‘eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves,’ will occurto every reader (Judges xvi 21, Milton Samson Agonistes 41, &c.).—μύλων is, in respect of accent, a false form. (Chandler, Gk Acc. § 638.)

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hide References (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
    • Demosthenes, Olynthiac 1, 18
    • Demosthenes, On the False Embassy, 308
    • Demosthenes, For Phormio, 7
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