εἰ τὰ μάλιστα κ.τ.λ. ‘If it were ever so true that this surplus existed.’
ὀτιανοῦν The common reading before Reiske's edition was ὁτιοῦν, which comes to the same thing. The latter, G. H. Schaefer remarks, is for ὅτι οὖν ἐστὶν, the former for ὅτι ἂν οὖν ᾖ. [ὁτιανοῦν is not found elsewhere in the ‘Demosthenic’ speeches.] ‘They surely were not men who, to get hold of the property of others, would (as you all of you know) have recourse to any artifice, and yet would have tamely allowed my father to have received what belonged to them.’ Kennedy translates: ‘persons who would go all lengths to get the property of others, as you all know, and of course would never have allowed my father to receive what belonged to them.’ The ἂν belongs to both clauses, but the imperfect represents the habitual way of action, the aorist the single event. A similar syntax occurs inf. § 26.
