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§ 35-37 Your public festivals are punctually held. Why then are your expeditions always too late (35)? Because all arrangements for the former are properly made in good time, but in military matters there is no ready-made organisation: everything has to be done at the last moment, and the consequent delay involves failure (36). Procrastination means final loss of opportunity. Your existing troops are useless in an emergency. And to Philip can write contemplucuily of us as he does to the Euboean: (37). καίτοι with μέν. This method of bringing out an inconsistency by the coordination of clauses with μὲν and δὲ is very commonly employed: in most cases the corresponding English exhibits subordination of the μὲν-clause, which may be introduced by ‘though,’ ‘whereas,’ or ‘while.’ Παναθηναίων . τὰ μεγάλα Π. were held in the third year of each Olympiad, early in August; τὰ μικρὰ at the same season in each of the intervening years. Διονυσίων . τὰ μεγάλα Δ. were held yearly at the end of March, with the most important of the dramatic exhibitions; τὰ κατ᾽ ἀγροὺς in December; τὰ ἐν Λίμναις (more commonly known as τὰ Λήναια) in January. The Anthesteria, also held in honour of Dionysus, may be included. τοῦ καθήκοντος χρόνου. The genitive of time is used rather loosely; for indicating a date the dative is the usual form. δεινοί, ‘experts,’ contrasted with ἰδιῶται, ‘persons without special knowledge or experience’: both words are complementary to the predicate. οἱ ... ἐπιμελούμενοι , i.e. in the case of the Dionysia the ἄρχων ἐπώνυμος, in that of the Panathenaea the ten specially appointed ἀθλόθεται. Taking these words as subject, λάχωσι is used absolutely—‘are appointed by lot to be such.’ It seems quite needless to depart from the reading of S. οὐδ᾽ εἰς ἕνα, a more emphatic expression than εἰς οὐδένα. ὄχλον, colloquially ‘fuss.’ ἔχει, ‘bring with them’: as subject to this verb we may supply ἃ from εἰς ἅ; but note that when in English we have a relative clause containing two or more members in which the syntactic function of the relative is not the same, Greek idiom does not repeat the relative, but if for any reason it is desired to repeat the thing signified by the relative, the personal (or sometimes demonstrative) pronoun is used instead. Cf. Phil. III. 47 Λακεδαιμόνιοι, οἳ θαλάττης μὲν ἦρχον καὶ γῆς ἁπάσης...ὑφίστατο δ᾽ οὐδὲν αὐτούς. In reality such a member is an independent clause. Considering what we know of the elaborateness of some of the Athenian festivals, the statement in this sentence is probably little, if at all, exaggerated. For Philip's capture of the towns mentioned see Introd. §§ 5, 6. Potidaea is mentioned last as most important.