Source edition
Demosthenes. Orationes, Vol. II, Part 2. Rennie, W., editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.
Source data
Perseus Digital Library · CC BY-SA (per Perseus's terms)
Cloned and adapted by Humanitext, with ongoing edits.
Summary
This work is a forensic speech delivered in an Athenian court regarding a commercial lawsuit (dike emporike) over a breached maritime loan agreement against the defendant, Lacritus of Phaselis. The plaintiff begins by exposing how Lacritus used his prestige as a \"pupil of Isocrates\" to secure a loan under false pretenses and subsequently failed to fulfill any of his contractual obligations. Through various witness testimonies, the speech details how the agreed-upon security of wine was never properly loaded onto the ship, and how additional, unauthorized loans were taken out. The plaintiff further dismantles the defense's excuse of a shipwreck, revealing that the lost vessel and cargo were unrelated to their contract and that they deliberately avoided Athens' official trading port. Ultimately, the speech denounces Lacritus's reliance on sophistical rhetoric to evade his debt, emphasizing that such contractual violations threaten the legal authority and commercial interests of Athens, and urges the jury to deliver a just verdict.