[2]
They consider that, if they pay their
debts, it is like having lost something of their own private property, and,
instead of paying, they invent sophisms, and special pleas, and pretexts; and
are the most unprincipled and dishonest of men. Here is a proof of this. Out of
the hosts of people, both Greeks and barbarians, who frequent your exchange, the
Phaselites alone have more lawsuits, whenever the courts sit,1 than all others put
together. That is the sort of people they are.
1 The courts for the settlement of maritime cases sat from September to April, the period when the sea was closed to navigation. See Dem. 33.23.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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