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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.
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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.
