But 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;Just as the terra-cotta figurines were manufactured not for practical use, but for the toy-market, so the generals were elected, not to fight, but to make a brave show in the public processions. you choose your brigadiers and commanders for the market-place, not for the field.

What! Ought 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,We learn from Aristot. Ath. Pol. 61.6, that a ἵππαρχος was regularly sent to Lemnos to take charge of the cavalry there. leaving MenelausIdentified by Harpocration with a son of Amyntas II. and so half-brother of Philip; more probably a petty Macedonian chief who helped the Athenians at Potidaea in 364, and who is named in a complimentary inscription which has been preserved (C.I.A. 2.55). 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.

You 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.The proposed pay is 2 obols a day for infantry and marines, 1 drachma for cavalry. The crew of a trireme numbered 200. The daily pay would therefore be: Galleys: 2 ob. x 200 x 10 = 4000 ob. Infantry: 2 ob. x 2000 = 4000 ob. Cavalry: 6 ob. x 200 = 1200 ob. Total, 9200 obols or 15 1/3 minae a day; 460 minae or 7 2/3 talents a month; 92 talents a year. The hoplite normally received 2 obols for pay and the same for rations; the cavalry thrice this amount. Demosthenes’ proposal amounts to this, that the pay should be halved and the men encouraged to make it up by looting. To appreciate these sums, it should he noted that an unskilled laborer at Athens received 3 or 4 obols a day.

If 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.

This is the scheme, Athenians, which my colleaguesOn some financial board, or perhaps only members of the same political party. The suggestion of Dionysius that a new speech commences here has not found favor with the majority of editors. 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.