Olynthiac 2

Why is it, think you, men of Athens, that all the generals you dispatch—if I am to tell you something of the truth about them—leave this war to itself and pursue little wars of their own? It is because in this war the prizes for which you contend are your own—(if, for instance, Amphipolis is captured, the immediate gain will be yours)—while the officers have all the dangers to themselves and no remuneration; but in the other case the risks are smaller and the prizes fall to the officers and the soldiers—Lampsacus, for example, and Sigeum, and the plunder of the merchant-ships. So they turn aside each to what pays him best.

But you, whenever you turn your attention to your reverses, sit in judgement on your officers, but acquit them whenever in defence they plead their necessities. Hence the outcome is strife and contention among yourselves, some taking this side and some that, while the interests of the state suffer. You conduct your party-politics, Athenians as you used to conduct your taxpaying—by syndicates.[*](Since the year 378 for the payment of the war-tax (ἐισφορά), and since 357 for the trierarchy also, the citizens had been divided into a number of συμμορίαι, such that each comprised an equal fraction of the private wealth of the community. They were also divided into four classes according to property, the first class consisting of the wealthiest citizens, who prepaid the whole required sum into the exchequer and then recovered the money due from the less wealthy classes—a system which produced the abuses remedied by Demosthenes in 340. The richest man in a symmory was called the ἡγεμών or chairman and had under him an ἐπιμελητής or director. The comparison here is only a rough-and-ready one. Each political party in the Assembly has an orator (ἡγεμών) at its head, a favorite general (ἐπιμελητής) whose claims it supports, and a group of backers who applaud (= the 300 who pay).) Each syndicate has an orator for chairman, with a general under him and three hundred to do the shouting. The rest of you are attached now to one party and now to another.

Surely this system must be abandoned. You must be once more your own masters, and must give to all alike the same chance to speak, to counsel, to act. But if you authorize one class of men to issue orders like absolute monarchs, and force another class to equip the galleys and pay the war-tax and serve in the field, while yet a third class has no other public duty than to vote the condemnation of the latter, you will never get anything essential done at the right time. There will always be some class with a grievance, who will fail you, and then it will be your privilege to punish them instead of the enemy.

To sum up, I propose that all should contribute equitably, each according to his means, that all should serve in turn until all have taken part in the campaign, that all who wish to address you should have a fair hearing, and that you should adopt the best advice offered, not just what this man or that man is pleased to suggest. If you do this, you will be able to congratulate the speaker at once and yourselves later on, when you find the cause of the nation prospering.