[26]
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;1 you choose your brigadiers and commanders for the
market-place, not for the field. What!
1 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.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1930.
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