Apollodorus Against Polycles for Expenses Incurred while Serving as Trierarch (46-50)

For, while the fleet was lying at Thasos, a despatch-boat came from Methonê in Macedonia to Thasos, bringing a man with letters from Callistratus to Timomachus, which, as I afterward learned, contained a request that he should send the swiftest-sailing ship he had to bring Callistratus to him. At once, then, at daybreak the next morning, the officer from the general came and ordered me to summon my crew to the ship.

When it was manned, Callippus, the son of Philon, of Aexonê,[*] came on board, and ordered the pilot to steer the course for Macedonia. When we had reached a place on the opposite mainland, a trading post of the Thasians, and had gone ashore and were getting our dinner, one of the sailors, Callicles, the son of Epitrephes, of Thria,[*] came up to me, and said that he wished to speak to me about a matter which concerned myself. I bade him speak on, and he said that he wanted to make what return he could for the help I had given him in his need.

Do you know, then, he asked, for what purpose you are making this voyage, and where you are going? When I replied that I did not know, he said, Then I will tell you; for you must learn this in order to plan your action aright. You are going, said he, to bring Callistratus, an exile whom the Athenians have twice condemned to death, from Methonê to Thasos to Timomachus, his kinsman by marriage. I have found this out, he said, from the servants of Callippus. For your own part, then, if you are wise, you will not permit any exile to come on board the ship; for the laws forbid it.

On hearing this from Callicles, I approached Callippus, and asked him to what place he was sailing, and whom he was going to fetch. He spoke roughly to me and threatened me in a way you can easily understand (for you are not without experience of the ways of Callippus), and I said to him, I hear that you are sailing to fetch Callistratus. Now, I will transport no exile, nor will I go to fetch him; for the laws forbid anyone to give harborage to any exile, and make one who does so liable to the same punishment. I shall, therefore, sail back to the general in Thasos.

So, when the sailors came on board, I ordered the pilot to sail back to Thasos. Callippus protested, and bade him sail for Macedonia in accordance with the general’s commands; but Posidippus, the pilot, answered him that I was trierarch of the ship, and the one responsible, and that he got his pay from me; he would sail, therefore, whither I bade him sail—to Thasos, to the general.