[24]
My reasons for insisting on the presence of citizens
in the expedition are these. I am told that on a previous occasion the state
maintained a mercenary force at Corinth,1 commanded by Polystratus, Iphicrates,
Chabrias, and others, and that you citizens also served in person; and I know
from history that you and these mercenaries, fighting shoulder to shoulder, beat
the Lacedaemonians in the field. But ever since exclusively mercenary forces
have been fighting for you, it is your friends and allies that they have beaten,
while the power of your enemies has increased beyond bounds. They cast a casual
glance at the war for which Athens
has hired them, and off they sail to join Artabazus or anyone else, and the
general naturally follows them, for he cannot command if he does not pay.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.