J. E. Sandys, Select Private Orations of Demosthenes

---

§§ 4—11. Statement of the transactions of Phormion with Pasion and Apollodorus. After Phormion had become his own master, but before he had received the rights of Athenian citizenship, Pasion gave him a lease of the Bank and the Shield - Manufactory. Subsequently Pasion became ill and died, leaving a will whereby Phormion married his former master's widow (Archippe), and became guardian to his younger son (Pasicles). The elder son (Apollodorus) proceeded to appropriate large sums out of the common estate, and the guardians accordingly deemed it prudent on behalf of their ward to determine on a partition of all the effects except the Bank and Shield-Manufactory, leased to the defendant, who was one of the guardians. The defendant paid a moiety of the rent of that property to the elder son, Apollodorus, who, when Pasicles came of age, discharged the defendant from his liability under the lease and from all further claims. The said property was thereupon divided between the two brothers, the elder exercising his option in favour of the Shield-Manufactory, as the safer though less remunerative business, and leaving the Bank, with its higher but more hazardous revenue, to his younger brother.

ἀναγνώσεται sc. ὁ γραμματεύς, the clerk of the court, as in §§ 21, 24, 40.—συνθήκας: The terms are given in Or. 45 § 32 μίσθωσιν φέρειν τοῦτον ἄνευ τῆς καθ᾽ ἡμέραν διοικήσεως δύο τάλαντα καὶ τετταράκοντα μνᾶς τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἑκάστου ..προσγέγραπται δὲ τελευταῖον ‘ὀφείλει δὲ Πασίων ἕνδεκα τάλαντα εἰς τὰς παρακαταθήκας.’

ἀσπιδοπηγεῖον Or. 45 § 85 ὁ ἐμὸς ὑμῖν πατὴρ (Pasion) χιλίας ἔδωκεν ἀσπίδας.

τὴν πρόκλησιν Probably a challenge to Apollodorus for the production of the articles of agreement between Pasion and Phormion. On the term in general, see Or. 54 § 27, προκαλοῦνται, n. and infr. § 7 n.

ἤδη καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν ὄντι ‘Doing business on his own account, as his own master,’ no longer subject, as a slave, to the control of another, though still a μέτοικος. This rendering is supported by C. R. Kennedy and M. Dareste. Similarly in Reiske's index: ‘when he had left his master's service, and gone into business for himself, in his own name, at his own risk.’ καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν is often used of being ‘by oneself.’ separate from others; 21 § 140 καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν ζῶντι, 10 § 52 γεγόνασι καθ᾽ αὑτοὺς ἕκαστοι.

προσώφειλε κ.τ.λ. The defendant has to explain how it comes to pass that Pasion is entered in the articles of agreement as owing eleven talents to the bank. He shows that this sum had been lent by Pasion on the security of certain lands and houses on which Pasion as the creditor, being an Athenian citizen, would have a claim, in the event of the loan not being refunded or the interest regularly paid. As Phormion, the lessee of the banking business, had not yet acquired the rights of citizenship, it was therefore arranged that Pasion should not transfer these securities to Phormion but keep them in his own hands, and credit Phormion with their value: in other words, enter himself in the articles of agreement as debtor to the bank to the amount of eleven talents.

For προσώφειλε, thecompound verb followed by the simple ὤφειλε where the repetition of the preposition is not necessary, cf. Cic. Catil. IV 1 “perferrem ..feram.” Cf. Or. 53 § 4.