Guardianship

They have rendered an account as though the estate were one of five talents only;

Demosthenes, my father, men of the jury, left at his death an estate of nearly fourteen talents, a son, myself, aged seven, and my sister, aged five, and his widow, our mother, who had brought him a fortune of fifty minae.

The rest of the estate—an amount twice as large—they might have invested profitably, and, if greedy for money, have taken a reasonable amount for themselves, and have increased my estate from the income, besides keeping the principal intact.

For our opponents, I take it, did not bring suit for the mere name mal-administration in guardianship, but for the money;

But first the clerk shall read to you the depositions which show that they released our father from the charges which they made on the matter of his guardianship;

and that Demaretus, whom our father left as our guardian, could not have received them either (for they have written his name also in their complaint), this, too, I shall show.

For though guardianships were invented for the benefit of wards, yet the guardian has a right to authority over the ward.

Also, though he was receiving an income of seventy minae from the property of our uncle Dicaeogenes (II.

For of these persons he was at the same time the guardian and legal representative and the legal adversary;