On the Trierarchic Crown

If the decree, men of the senate, ordered that the crown should be given to the man having the largest number of advocates, it would have been senseless for me to claim it, for Cephisodotus alone has spoken on my behalf, while a host of pleaders has spoken for my opponents. But the fact is, the people appointed that the treasurer should give the crown to the one who first got his trireme ready for sea; and this I have done; so I declare that it is I who should be crowned.

Also I am surprised that my opponents neglected their ships, but took care to get their orators ready; and they seem to me to be mistaken in regard to the whole affair, and to imagine that you are grateful, not to those who do their duty, but to those who say they do it; and they have formed a totally different estimate regarding you from that which I hold. For this very reason it is right that you should feel more kindly disposed toward me; for it is plain that I entertain a higher opinion of you than they do.

Surely it would have been right and proper, men of Athens, that those who claim to receive a crown from you, should show that they are worthy of it, and not speak ill of me. But since they leave out the former of these two things and do the latter, I shall show that they are speaking falsely both in their praise of themselves and in their slander of me; and I shall prove this by their own deeds and by mine.

When you had passed a decree and confirmed it, to the effect that whoever did not bring his ship around to the pier before the last day of the month should be placed under arrest and handed over to the court, I brought my ship up to the pier, and for this I received a crown from you, while the others had not even launched their ships; they therefore have made themselves liable to imprisonment. Would it not, then, be the strangest possible act on your part, if you should be seen to confer a crown on people who had suffered themselves to become liable to so grievous a penalty?

As to the ship’s equipment, moreover, all, that is, which the state is bound to supply to the trierarchs, I purchased it with my own resources and took nothing from the public stores, while these men used equipment of yours and spent none of their own money for this purpose. And surely they cannot say either that they got their ship ready for trial before I did mine; for mine was manned before they had so much as touched theirs, and you all saw the ship being tested.

More than this, I secured the very best rowers, giving by far the highest wages. If my opponents had had rowers inferior to mine, it would have been nothing disgraceful, but in fact they have hired rowers of no sort whatever, though they lay claim to larger numbers. And yet, how can it be fair, when they manned their ship later than I did mine, for them now to receive the crown as having been the first to get ready?

I think therefore that even without my saying anything you recognize that you would most justly grant me the crown, but I wish to show you that of all people in the world these men have the least claim to it. How can I prove this most clearly? By what they have themselves done. For they sought out the man who would take their trierarchy on the lowest terms, and have let the service to him. Yet is it not unjust to shrink from making the outlay, and still to demand a share in the honors accruing from it, and while they lay the blame for not bringing their ship up to the pier at that time on the man they hired, to bid you now reward them for good service rendered?

You ought, men of Athens, to seek a just course, not only in the light of these considerations, but also in the light of your own previous actions in the case of others who have acted as these men have done. For, when you were worsted in the sea-fight against Alexander,[*](Alexander of Pherae had defeated the Athenian fleet at Peparethus in 361 B.C.) you thought that the trierarchs who had let out their trierarchies were chiefly responsible for what had happened, and you gave them over for imprisonment, having decided by show of hands that they had betrayed their ships and deserted their post.

The accusation was made by Aristophon, and you were the judges; and, if the anger you felt had been equal to their crime, nothing could have prevented their being put to death. My opponents, although they are aware that they have done just what those others did, instead of shuddering before you at the thought of what they ought to suffer, make speeches attacking others, and demand that they themselves be crowned. And yet, consider what would be thought of your way of reaching decisions, if you are seen to have condemned some persons to death and to have crowned others for the same cause!

And you would be thought to be making a mistake, not only if you should do this, but also if you should fail to punish those who do things of this sort, when you have them in your power. For the time to feel indignation is not when you have suffered some of your possessions to be lost, but while they are safe, but you see those placed in charge of them failing through a shameful love of gain to make adequate provision for their safety. Let no one of you condemn my speech because he regards it as bitter; condemn rather those who have committed the crime; for it is because of them that my speech is such as it is.

I for my part wonder why in the world these men should imprison and punish those of the sailors who desert their ships—men who receive only thirty drachmae apiece,—while you do not deal in the same manner with those of the trierarchs who do not sail with their ships yet receive thirty minae apiece for so doing; if a poor man through stress of need commits a fault, is he to be liable to the severest penalties, while, if a rich man does the same thing through shameful love of gain, is he to win pardon? Where, then, is equality for all and popular government, if you decide matters in this way?

More than this, it seems to me to be absurd that, when a man says anything contrary to law, he should, if he is convicted, be deprived of one third of his personal rights,[*](Precisely what this partial ἀτιμία (disfranchisement) was, it is impossible to state definitely.) while those guilty not of words but of acts that are illegal should pay no penalty. Surely, men of Athens, you would all say that leniency in regard to such offences merely trains up others to commit them.

I wish, now that I have entered upon this subject, to set forth to you also the consequences which result from such actions. When a man who has taken the trierarchy for hire sets sail, he plunders and pillages everybody; the profits he reaps for himself, but whoever it may chance to be of you citizens pays the damages; and you alone of all people are unable to travel anywhere without a herald’s staff of truce because of the acts of these men in seizing hostages and in provoking reprisals;

so that, if one looks at the matter frankly, he will find that triremes such as these have sailed forth, not for you, but against you. For a man who serves as trierarch in the interest of Athens ought not to expect to grow rich at the public expense, but ought by means of his own resources to repair the losses of the state, if you are to have the service which you need. But each commander goes out determined to pursue the opposite course, and the losses resulting from their own evil ways are repaired by the damages which fall on you.

And this is but natural. For you have suffered those who choose to act dishonestly, if they escape discovery, to keep what they have stolen, and, even if they are caught, to win pardon; those therefore who have no regard for their reputation have acquired licence to do as they please. Men in private life who learn only through suffering we call lacking in foresight; what, then, should we call you, who are not on your guard even after repeated suffering?

It is right that I should say something about those who have spoken as their advocates. Certain people are so convinced that they have the right to do or say whatever they please before you, that some of those who joined with Aristophon[*](This was the celebrated Aristophon of Azenia, who is stated in Aeschin. 3.194 to have averred that he had been acquitted seventy-five times on the charge of introducing bills that were illegal.) in preferring his charges, and were bitter against those who let out their trierarchies, now bid you to crown these people here; and they prove one or the other of two things against themselves. Either in the former instance they brought forward charges that were baseless, or they have now been bribed to plead the cause of my opponents;

and they bid you grant them a favor, as if the argument were about a gift instead of a prize, or as if you, at the instance of men like them, were seeking to win the favor of those who neglect your interests, and as if it were not rather your duty, at the instance of better men, to show favor to those who serve you as they should. Then again, they care so little for a good reputation, and are so thoroughly of the opinion that everything is of secondary importance compared with gain, that they not only have the audacity to contradict in their public speeches what they said before, but even now their statements do not agree; for they assert that the trireme which is to win the crown should have its proper crew on board, yet they bid you crown the trierarchs who have let their service devolve upon others.

And they state that no one got his ship in readiness before my opponents did, yet they bid you crown us jointly, which is not what the decree orders. I am as far from granting this as I am from having let out my trierarchy; I would not submit to the one, nor have I done the other. They pretend to be pleading in the interests of justice, but they show more zeal than any one of you would do without reward, as though their duty was to earn their pay, not to give an opinion.

And then, as if they were not members of a free state, in which because of this fact anyone who chooses has the right to speak, but as if they possessed this right as a sort of sacred prerogative of their own, if any man speaks in your midst in defence of what is right, they feel themselves grossly wronged, and say that he is an impudent fellow. And they have gone so far in their senseless folly, that they think that, if they call a man impudent who has spoken but once, they will themselves be thought good and worthy men all their lives.

Yet it is because of the public speeches of these men that many matters are going from bad to worse, while it is owing to those who honestly oppose them that not everything is lost. Such are the pleaders, then, that my opponents have engaged to speak on their behalf, and so readily open to attack are they themselves for any who wish to speak any ill of them (as they well know); yet they have seen fit to contest this matter, and they have had the audacity to speak ill of another, when they should have been well content to keep out of trouble themselves.