Be assured that it will be no more in my interest than in your own that you will punish Polycles, nor will you be showing concern merely for those who have served as trierarchs in the past; no, you will be taking thought also for those who are to serve in the future, so that those who perform public services may not be discouraged, and those who are designated as their successors may not show contempt toward the laws, but may go to their ships when they are appointed. These matters you should bear in mind, and reach a fair and just decision regarding all the points at issue.

I should gladly ask you, men of the jury, what opinion you would have had of me, if, when my term of service had expired and the defendant had not come to take over the ship, I had refused to serve longer when the general so ordered, but had sailed away. Would you not have been indignant and have thought that I was wronging you? If, then, you would have been indignant in that case, because I refused to serve beyond my term, should you not now exact from the defendant the money expended by me on his behalf, seeing that he did not take over the ship?

To prove that it is not in my case only that he failed to take over his ship, but that on a former occasion also, when he was the associate of Euripides in the trierarchy and there was an agreement between them that each should sail for six months, when Euripides had sailed and the term had expired, Polycles did not take over the ship from him,—to prove this, I say, the clerk shall read the deposition.