Apollodorus Against Timotheus

Let no one of you think, men of the jury, that it is a thing beyond belief that Timotheus should have owed money to my father and is now being prosecuted by me in this suit. On the contrary, when I have called to your minds the occasion on which the loan was contracted and the events in which the defendant was at that time involved and the straits to which he was reduced, you will then hold that my father was most generous to Timotheus, and that the defendant is not only ungrateful, but is the most dishonest of humankind;

for he got from my father all that he asked, and received from the bank money at a time when he was in great need and when he was in grievous danger of losing his life[*](His treasurer, Antimachus, actually was condemned to death, and Timotheus himself was saved from a like fate only by the intercession of influential friends. See Dem. 49.10.); yet he has not only made no return, but even seeks to rob me of the money which was granted him. And yet, if matters had gone badly with Timotheus, my father’s money, too, was lost, for he lent it without security and without witnesses; but, if the defendant got off safe, it rested with him to choose when, having the funds available, he should pay us back.

But for all that, men of the jury, my father did not count the holding of large sums of money as important a matter as to supply Timotheus with what he needed in the time of his distress. No, my father thought, men of the jury, that, if Timotheus then got safely out of those dangers and returned home from the service of the king,[*](After being deposed from his command of the Athenian fleet in 373 B.C., Timotheus entered the service of the king of Persia.) when the defendant was in better circumstances than at the time, he would not only recover his money, but would be in a position to obtain whatever else he might wish from Timotheus.

But as matters have not turned out as my father expected, since the money which Timotheus asked of my father and gratefully received from the bank he is determined, now that my father is dead, to pay back only if forced to do so by hostile legal procedure, and by convincing proof of his indebtedness, and, if he can convince you by deceitful arguments that he is not liable, to rob us of the money—I count it necessary to inform you fully of everything from the beginning: the several loans, the purpose for which he expended each sum, and the dates at which the obligations were contracted.

And let no one of you wonder that I have accurate knowledge of these matters; for bankers are accustomed to write out memoranda of the sums which they lend, the purposes for which funds are desired, and the payments which a borrower makes, in order that his receipts and his payments may be known to them for their accounts.

It was then, in the archonship of Socratidas,[*](The archonship of Socratidas fell in 374-373 B.C.) in the month Munichion,[*](Munichion corresponds to the latter half of April and the prior half of May.) when the defendant Timotheus was about to sail on his second expedition and was already in the Peiraeus on the point of putting to sea, that, being in want of money, he came to my father in the port and urged him to lend him one thousand three hundred and fifty-one drachmae two obols, declaring that he needed that additional sum; and he bade him give the money to his treasurer Antimachus, who at that time managed everything for him.

It was Timotheus who borrowed the money from my father, and who bade him give it to his treasurer Antimachus, but the one who received the money from Phormio at the bank was Autonomus, who throughout all that time served as secretary to Antimachus.

When, therefore, the money was paid out, the bank recorded as debtor Timotheus, who had requested the loan, but made a memorandum in the name of Antimachus, to whom Timotheus had ordered the money to be paid, and also named Autonomus, whom Antimachus had sent to the bank to receive the money, the amount being one thousand three hundred and fifty-one drachmae two obols. The first loan, then, which Timotheus contracted at the time of his going to sea, when he was serving as general the second time, was for this amount.

Again, when you had removed him from his command as general because he failed to sail round the Peloponnesus, and he had been given over to the popular assembly for trial under a very heavy charge, when he was being prosecuted by Callistratus and Iphicrates,[*](Important figures in the political life of Athens. The former was an orator, the latter one of the generals.) men of power both in action and in speech, and they and their fellow-pleaders so influenced your minds by their accusations against him

that you condemned and put to death Antimachus, his treasurer and a man most devoted to him,—yes, and confiscated his property; while Timotheus himself, thanks to the intercession of all his friends and relatives, and also of Alcetas and Jason,[*](Alcetas was king of the Molossi in Epeirus, Jason tyrant of Pherae in Thessaly. With both of these men Timotheus had formed connections while in command of the fleet.) who were allies of yours, you were reluctantly induced to pardon, but you deposed him from his command;—

such were the charges under which he lay, and he was in desperate need of money. For all his property had been mortgaged, pillars had been set up on it, and other people were in control. His farm in the plain had been taken over as security by the son of Eumelidas; the rest of his property was mortgaged, for seven minae each, to the sixty trierarchs who set out on the voyage with him, which money he as admiral had forced them to distribute among their crews for maintenance.

When he was deposed, he reported in the account which he rendered, that he had at that time himself given those seven minae for the ships from the military fund, but, fearing lest the trierarchs should give evidence against him and he should be convicted of lying, he borrowed privately from each one of them seven minae, and gave them a mortgage on his property. Yet he is now seeking to rob them of this money, and he has dug up the pillars.

He was hard pressed on every side, his life was in extreme danger because of the gravity of the misfortunes which had befallen the state, the army in Calaureia[*](Calaureia was an island off the east coast of Peloponnesus, the modern Poros.) had been broken up for want of pay, the allies around Peloponnesus were being besieged by the Lacedaemonians, Iphicrates and Callistratus were accusing him of being responsible for the present disaster, and, furthermore, those who came from the army were reporting before the assembly the distress and need that existed, and at the same time individuals kept receiving word from their relatives and friends telling of their plight. These things you all heard in the popular assembly at that time, and you remember how each man of you felt toward him; you are not without knowledge of what people were saying.

Well, then, when he was on the point of sailing home for his trial, the defendant, while still in Calaureia, borrowed from Antiphanes of Lamptrae,[*](Lamptrae was a deme of the tribe Erectheis.) who sailed with Philip the shipowner as his treasurer, the sum of one thousand drachmae to distribute among the Boeotian trierarchs, that they might remain with the fleet until his trial should come off, for fear lest, if the Boeotian fleet should first be broken up and the troops scattered here and there to their homes, you might be the more incensed against him.

For although our countrymen endured their privations and remained at their posts, the Boeotians declared that they would not stay, unless somebody should furnish them with their daily rations. Under stress of necessity, then, at that time he borrowed the thousand drachmae from Antiphanes, who sailed with Philip, the shipowner, as his treasurer, and gave them to the admiral of the Boeotian fleet.

But when he got back to Athens, both Philip and Antiphanes demanded of him the thousand drachmae which he had borrowed in Calaureia, and were angry at not receiving their money at once. Timotheus, then, fearing that his enemies might learn that the thousand drachmae, which in his report he stated he had paid for the Boeotian fleet out of the military fund, had in fact been lent by Philip, who could not get them back,

and fearing also that Philip might give testimony against him at his trial, came to my father and begged him to settle with Philip, and to lend him the thousand drachmae to pay Philip. And my father, seeing the seriousness of the trial in which the defendant was involved, and in what plight he was, felt pity for him, and, taking him to the bank, bade Phormio, who was cashier, to pay Philip the thousand drachmae, and to enter on the books Timotheus as owing that amount.

To prove that these statements are true, I shall bring forward Phormio, who paid the money, as a witness, as soon as I shall have explained to you the other loan, in order that, being informed through the same deposition about the whole of the debt, you may know that I am speaking the truth. I shall also call before you Antiphanes, who lent the sum of one thousand drachmae to the defendant in Calaureia, and who was present when Philip received payment of the money from my father here in Athens.

That I did not put the deposition in the box before the arbitrator was due to a trick of Antiphanes, who kept saying that he would give evidence for me on the day set for the decision; but when the hearing was in progress before the arbitrator, although he was summoned from his house (for he was nowhere to be seen), he was persuaded by Timotheus to fail to appear as a witness. On my depositing a drachma in his name on a charge of failing to appear, as the law prescribes, the arbitrator did not make an award against the defendant, but decided in his favor, and then went off, for it was already late.

Now, however, I have entered suit on my own account for damages against Antiphanes because he neither gave testimony for me, nor asked under oath for a postponement, as the law provides. And I demand of him that he get up and state under oath before you, first, whether he lent Timotheus a thousand drachmae in Calaureia, and secondly, whether Philip received here payment of that sum from my father.