Demosthenes, Speeches 27-38

32. Against Zenothemis

32. AGAINST ZENOTHEMIS 1 On the relationship, see Davies 1971: 116 –117. 2 On the procedure of counter-indictment (paragraphē), see pp. 12–13. introduction The speech Against Zenothemis is written for delivery by a cousin of Demosthenes named Demon, who was probably a son of the Demomeles son of Demon mentioned in 27.11 (as shown in the genealogy on p. 8).1 Probably the text was written by Demosthenes, though some scholars have suggested that it was written by Demon himself. Demon has been prosecuted by Zenothemis, a man from Massalia (modern Marseille in southern France), and now brings a counter-indictment2 against Zenothemis, claiming that the prosecution is inadmissible. The date of the speech is not known, but is likely to be between 353 and 340 bc. According to Demon, what happened was this. Hegestratus, who like Zenothemis was a Massaliot, was the skipper of a ship on a voyage from Athens to Syracuse in Sicily and back. For the return voyage from Syracuse to Athens, a merchant named Protus (whose nationality is unknown, but he was not Athenian) put on board a cargo of grain purchased in Syracuse with money which had been lent to him in Athens by Demon and his partners. (The partners are mentioned in 32.21, but evidently Demon was the principal.) Hegestratus and his friend Zenothemis then planned a fraud. Each of them borrowed money in Syracuse, pretending that the grain on the ship had been purchased by them and served as security for their creditors; but instead of using the money to buy goods, they sent it away to Massalia. 32. against zenothemis 85 3 On mercantile cases, see pp. 13–14. When the ship was two or three days out of Syracuse on the way to Athens, they planned to sink it, so that according to the usual contractual terms they would not have to repay the loans and would keep the money. But the plan went wrong; Hegestratus was drowned, and the ship did not sink but got safely to the island of Cephallenia and thence, despite Zenothemis’ protests, back to Athens. The grain, having been unloaded, was claimed by Protus, who intended now to sell it in Athens. Zenothemis, however, claimed it too, saying that it was the security for money which he had lent to Hegestratus . He also took steps to prosecute Protus, alleging that Protus had got drunk during the voyage and had stolen some documents from him and opened them. But then the price of grain happened to fall. Protus realized that if he established his claim to the grain now, he would have to sell it for less than the amount he owed Demon, and so he decided to cut his losses and run. He accepted a payment from Zenothemis to leave Athens; thus he lost by default the case in which Zenothemis was prosecuting him, and left the cargo of grain to be kept by Zenothemis. But then Demon took over the grain, as being the security for his loan to Protus, which Protus had failed to repay. The various claims to possession of the grain are referred to by the verb exagein, literally “lead away” or “eject” another person from possession . If a man thus ejected claimed that his right to ownership was already established, he could then prosecute the man who had ejected him by a case of ejectment (dikē exoulēs); if the defendant lost that case, he had not only to hand over the disputed property but also to pay a fine of an amount equal to the value of that property. That must be the type of case which Zenothemis has brought against Demon, claiming that his right to the grain is established by the contract designating it as the security for the loan which he made to Hegestratus. Zenothemis has brought this prosecution as a monthly case under the Athenian mercantile laws,3 but Demon now brings a counterindictment , asserting that prosecution under the mercantile laws cannot be allowed because there has never been any written contract between him and Zenothemis. This point may well have been emphasized in the last part of Demon’s speech, which is now lost. 86 demosthenes Since we do not have the statements made by Demon’s witnesses (at the end of sections 13 and 19), we do not know exactly which parts of his story they con...