Apollodorus Against Polycles

The clerk has read the depositions of all those whom I was able to produce, who were present in person, to prove that I again and again offered to give over the ship to Polycles, and that he refused to take it. More than that, I have shown by convincing circumstantial evidence, why it was that he refused to take over the ship. I desire now to have read to you the law also regarding those appointed to succeed others in the trierarchy, that you may know how severe the penalties are when a man fails to take over a ship from his predecessor within the appointed time, and how Polycles scoffed, not at me only, but at you and at the laws.

So far as he is concerned, all measures undertaken by the state and her allies have failed; for he neither joined his ship, as the law commands, nor, when he did come, was he willing to take over the ship from his predecessor; whereas I served for my own term and that of my associate in the trierarchy, and when my term of service had expired and I was ordered by the general to sail to Hieron, I convoyed the grain for our people,

that they might buy in a plentiful market, and that, so far as depended on me, there should be no lack; and I performed for the general every other service which he desired either of myself or of my trireme, not only spending my property, but risking my life as well through always making the voyage in person, although my domestic affairs were in such a condition at that time that you would pity me, if you heard them.

My mother lay sick,[*]( The speaker’s pretended concern for his mother accords ill with the attitude he shows toward her in Dem. 45.) and was at the point of death while I was abroad, so that she was unable any longer to help in the depletion of my resources save to a slight extent. I had been but six days at home, when, after she had seen and greeted me, she breathed her last, being no longer mistress of her property, so as to give me I as much as she wished. She had often sent for me before this, begging me to come to her by myself if I could not come in my ship.