§§ 28—32. Plaintiff's probable reply anticipated. Surely he will not ask his audience to resent the defendant's marriage with the plaintiff's mother. Among bankers, there are many precedents for such an arrangement, and on grounds of expediency, as the only means of keeping up the business, Pasion acted prudently in directing that Phormion should marry his widow and thereby binding him more closely to his own household.
As to the point of honour, ‘you may turn up your nose at Phormion's marrying into your family, but remember that in high character, he is more like your father than you are.’
That the marriage was directed by Pasion is not only expressly proved by the will, but is inferentially concluded from the plaintiff's own admission; for on his mother's death he permitted her two children by Phormion to share her property equally with himself and Pasicles, her two children by Pasion, and thus allowed the legality of this second marriage.
θαυμάζω κ.τ.λ. Or. 37 § 44 ἔγωγε, ὅ τι ποτ᾽ ἐρεῖ πρὸς ὑμᾶς, θαυμάζω.
τί ποτ᾽ ἑστὶν ἃ Cf. 54 § 13 n.
μηδὲν ὁρῶντες i.e. ἢν καὶ μηδὲν ὁρᾶτε. Goodwin, Moods and Tenses, § 52, 1; § 109, 6; §§ 472, 841, ed. 1889.
παρὰ τῶν κυρίων ἀπαλλαγεὶς ώσπερ ὁ τούτου πατὴρ A very close parallel. The banker referred to, like the plaintiff's father, had himself been a slave once, had been set free by his masters, and had given his wife in marriage to one who was formerly his slave. Cf. § 43 fin. and § 48 ἐγένετο Πασίων Ἀρχεστράτου. On ἐκεῖνος see Or. 40 § 28.
