Demosthenes' Father

Nay, my sister was to be the wife of Demophon with a dowry of two talents, my mother the wife of this most ruthless of all men with a dowry of eighty minae, and I as my father’s successor was to perform state services as he had done.

For he declared that my grandfather was a debtor to the state, and that for this reason my father would not have the property let, for fear of the risks he would run.

For my father, men of the jury, when he saw that he was not to recover from his sickness, called together these three men, and causing his brother Demon to sit with them by his side, placed our persons in their hands, calling us a sacred deposit.

For although my father, men of the jury, wrote a will containing an inventory of all that he left, with instructions for letting the property, this will Aphobus never gave up to me, lest I should learn from it the value of the estate, and admitted possessing only those items which were so well known that he could not deny that he had them.

If my father had no confidence in these men it is plain that he would neither have entrusted them with the rest of his property, nor, if he had left this money in the way alleged, would he have told them of it.

All the rest of the property left to me apart from these items, and the clause regarding the letting of the estate, he suppressed from the will, not thinking that it was to his interest that these matters should be made known in your court.