46
It is impossible, utterly impossible for one man ever to do all that you want done; he can only promiseEditors detect a special allusion here. The promises of Chares had become proverbial. and assent and throw the blame on someone else. In consequence our interests are ruined. For when your general leads wretched, ill-paid mercenaries, and finds plenty of men here to lie to you about what he has done, while you pass decrees at random on the strength of these reports, what are you to expect?
47
How then is all this to be stopped? As soon as you, men of Athens, definitely appoint the same men as soldiers and as eye-witnesses of the campaign, and, on their return, as jurymen at the audit of your generals. In this way you will not merely learn about your affairs by hearsay, but you will be witnesses on the spot. So scandalous is our present system that every general is tried two or three times for his life in your courts, but not one of them dares to risk death in battle against the enemy; no, not once. They prefer the doom of a kidnapper or a pickpocket to a fitting death; for malefactors are condemned to the gallows, generals should die on the field of honor.
48
Some of us spread the rumor that Philip is negotiating with the Lacedaemonians for the overthrow of Thebes and the dissolution of the free states, others that he has sent an embassy to the Great King, others that he is besieging towns in Illyria; in short, each of us circulates his own piece of fiction.
