Apollodorus Against Polycles for Expenses Incurred while Serving as Trierarch (31-35)

And besides I was ready to take an oath to confirm my reckoning. Upon my giving him this challenge, he answered that he had no interest in what I was saying. At this point a servant came from the general with orders for me to set sail. The order was given to me, not to the defendant, my successor, upon whom the duty was now devolving; but the reason for this I will explain in the course of my address. For the time being it seemed to me best to weigh anchor and sail where he ordered me,

but when I put into Thasos again, after towing the vessels to Strymê as the general had ordered, bidding the sailors and the marines and the rowers to remain on board, I went by myself to the house where the general, Timomachus, lodged, wishing that he too should be present, when I offered the ship with her full crew to the defendant Polycles.

I found the defendant there and the trierarchs and those who were to succeed them, and some others of our citizens; and on coming in I spoke at once to Polycles in the presence of the general, and called upon him to take over the ship from me, and to pay me for the disbursements made during the period since my term of service had expired; and I asked him about the ship’s equipment, whether he would take it over, or whether he had brought equipment of his own with him.

When I thus challenged him, he asked me why I was the only one of the trierarchs who had equipment of my own, and whether the state did not know that there were some people able to provide equipment for their ships, so that the state itself did not need to do it. Or have you, he said, so far surpassed the others in wealth as to be the only one of the trierarchs to have equipment of your own and gilded ornaments?

Who, he continued, could endure your madness and extravagance, a crew corrupted and accustomed to receive large sums in advance and to enjoy exemption from services normally required on board a ship, and able also to make use of the baths, and marines and rowers rendered luxurious by high wages paid in full? Bad ways, he said, are these you have taught the army. It is partly your fault that the troops of the other trierarchs have become more unruly, seeking to have the same treatment that yours enjoy; you ought to have done the same as the other trierarchs.