[9]
I am in doubt whether to suppose that you care nothing for the public welfare or that you are concerned about it, but have become so obtuse that you fail to see into what utter confusion our city has fallen. For you resemble men in that state of mind—you who have lost all the cities in Thrace,1 squandered to no purpose more than a thousand talents on mercenary troops,2
1 Not all the cities on the northern coast of the Aegean （Thrace）, but those on the Chalcidian peninsula, notably Amphipolis Pydna, Potidaea, and Olynthus, which had fallen under the power or under the influence of Philip of Macedon. See Dem. 4.4.
2 Athenian forces were now largely made up of paid foreigners, recruited from everywhere. See Isoc. 8.44-47; Dem. 4.20.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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