Χρῆσται
chrestai, borrowers, lenders
Translated by David Whitehead22 Dec 2000Vetting: high6 revisions
Translation
The word has two opposite meanings: for [it can mean] creditors, as in Isaeus.1 Aristophanes [writes]: "for by interest and the most hostile creditors I am being pillaged, plundered, having my goods seized for security".2 But Demosthenes says [chrestes] of the debtor: "the moneylenders who had been deceived from the outset, seeing that instead of [recovering] their goods they had a villain as debtor, and nothing more".3