Xenophon of Ephesus, An Ephesian Tale 1.15.5 · 1.15.5
A gift from Apsyrtus
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καὶ γὰρ ἔφη σφόδρα ἀγεννὲς κινδυνεύοντας καὶ παραβαλλομένους μὴ ἀπολαύειν μετὰ ἀδείας ὧν ἐκτησάμεθα πόνων· δυνησόμεθα δὲ αὐτοὺς ἔλεγεν ἐξαιρέτους παρὰ Ἀψύρτου λαβεῖν δωρεάν.
For he said it was a great shame for men who take risks and face danger not to enjoy in safety what we have won by our toil; and we will be able, he said, to get them from Apsyrtus as a gift, picked out for us.
Word by word
The setting
Book 1, chapter 15. Corymbus serves the pirate chief Apsyrtus for wages and a share of the plunder.
A note on this passage
Euxinus talks about the captives as plunder. ἐξαιρέτους, "picked out," is the word for the prize set aside for a leader before the spoils are shared: Thersites complains that Agamemnon's huts hold many women whom the Greeks give him "picked out" whenever they take a town (Iliad 2.226–228), and in Euripides Agamemnon takes Cassandra the same way (Trojan Women 249). Habrocomes and Anthia are part of the takings of the chief Apsyrtus, and the pirates mean to ask him for them as a gift.
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