| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 4.18 | Dem. 4.29 (Greek) | >>Dem. 4.38 |
4.25What then do I recommend? Deprive both general and men of all excuse by providing pay and by attaching to them citizen soldiers as overseers, so to speak, of their conduct in the field; for at present our system is a mockery. If anyone asked you, “Are you at peace, Athenians?” you would reply, “Certainly not; we are at war with Philip.”
4.26But have you not been electing from among yourselves ten brigadiers and ten generals and ten squadron—leaders and a couple of cavalry-commanders? And what, pray, are those officers doing? With the exception of the solitary one whom you dispatch to the seat of war, they are all busy helping the state-sacrificers to marshal your processions. You are like the men who model the clay puppets; note you choose your brigadiers and commanders for the market-place, not for the field. What!
4.27Ought there not to be brigadiers and a cavalry-commander, all chosen from among yourselves, native Athenian officers, that the force might be a truly national one? Yes, but your own cavalry-commander has to sail to Lemnos , note leaving Menelaus note to command the men who are fighting for our city's possessions. I do not say this in his disparagement, but that commander, whoever he is, ought to be one elected by you.
Athens , form a better idea of the war and of the total force required, if you considered the geography of the country you are attacking, and if you reflected that the winds and the seasons enable Philip to gain most of his successes by forestalling us. He waits for the Etesian winds note or for the winter, and attacks at a time when we could not possibly reach the seat of war.
4.32Bearing this in mind, we must rely not on occasional levies, or we shall be too late for everything, but on a regular standing army. You have the advantage of winter bases for your troops in Lemnos , Thasos , Sciathos, and the neighboring islands, where are to be found harbors, provisions, and everything that an army needs; and during that season of the year when it is easy to stand close in to shore and the winds are steady, your force will easily lie off his coast and at the mouth of his seaports.
Athens , you first provide the funds which I name and then equip the whole force complete, men, ships and cavalry, binding them legally to serve for the duration of the war, and if you make yourselves the stewards and administrators of the funds, looking to your general for an account of his operations, then you will no longer be for ever debating the same question and never making any progress.
4.34More than that, Athenians, you will be depriving Philip of his principal source of revenue. And what is that? For the war against you he makes your allies pay by raiding their sea-borne commerce. Is there any further advantage? Yes, you will be out of reach of injury yourselves. Your past experience will not be repeated, when he threw a force into Lemnos and Imbros and carried your citizens away captive, when he seized the shipping at Geraestus and levied untold sums, or, to crown all, when he landed at Marathon and bore away from our land the sacred trireme, note while you are still powerless to prevent these insults or to send your expeditions at the appointed times.
4.28You think perhaps that this is a sound proposal, but you are chiefly anxious to hear what the cost will be and how it will be raised. I now proceed to deal with that point. As to the cost then: the maintenance, the bare rationing of this force, comes to rather more than ninety talents; for the ten fast galleys forty talents, or twenty minae a ship every month; for two thousand men the same amount, that each may receive ten drachmas a month ration-money; for the two hundred cavalry twelve talents, if each is to receive thirty drachmas a month. note 4.29If anyone imagines that ration-money for the men on active service is only a small provision to start with, he is wrong; for I feel quite sure that if no more than that is forthcoming, the force itself will provide the rest out of the war, so as to make up their pay without injury to any Greek or allied community. I am ready to embark as a volunteer and submit to any punishment, if this is not so. I will now tell you the sources from which the sums may be derived which I recommend you to provide.
Memorandum of Ways and Means
4.30This is the scheme, Athenians, which my colleagues note and I have been able to contrive. When you give your votes, you will pass these proposals, if you approve them, because your object is to fight Philip not only with decrees and dispatches, but with deeds also.
4.31But you would, I think, men of
4.33How and when this force is to be employed will be a matter for your duly appointed commander to determine according to circumstances, but what it is your task to provide, that I have put down in my resolution. If, men of
| Demosthenes, Speeches (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose; rhetoric] [word count] [lemma count] [Dem.]. | ||
| <<Dem. 4.18 | Dem. 4.29 (Greek) | >>Dem. 4.38 |
