[36]
The explanation is that
at the festivals everything is ordered by statute; every man among you knows
long beforehand who of his tribe is to provide the chorus or who to equip the
gymnasium,1 what he is to receive, when and from
whom he is to receive it, and what he is to do; nothing here is left to chance,
nothing is undetermined: but in what pertains to war and its equipment,
everything is ill-arranged, ill-managed, ill-defined. Consequently we wait till
we have heard some piece of news, and then we appoint our ship-masters, and
arrange suits for exchange of property,2
and go into committee of ways and means, and next we resolve that the fleet
shall be manned by resident aliens and freedmen,
1 A more important function of the gymnasiarch was to equip a team for the torch-race (λαμπαδηφορία).
2 If a citizen, nominated for a “liturgy,” thought that a richer member of his tribe, otherwise eligible, had been passed over, he could challenge him to undertake the burden or exchange properties. In the case of the trierarchy such a challenge was referred to the Strategi.
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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