Philippic 1

So I propose that the whole force should consist of two thousand men, but of these five hundred must be Athenians, chosen from any suitable age and serving in relays for a specified period—not a long one, but just so long as seems advisable; the rest should be mercenaries. Attached to them will be two hundred cavalry, fifty at least of them being Athenians, serving on the same terms as the infantry. There will also be cavalry transports provided.

So far, so good; and what besides? Ten fast-sailing war-galleys. Since Philip has a fleet, we must have fast vessels if our force is to sail in safety. Now how is this army to be maintained? That also I will explain fully, when I have told you why I think so small a force sufficient, and why I insist that those serving shall be citizens.

I name a force of this size, Athenians, because it is not in our power now to provide one fit to meet him in pitched battle: we must adopt guerilla tactics to start with. The force must therefore be neither unwieldy—for we cannot afford the pay and maintenance—nor altogether insignificant.

My reasons for insisting on the presence of citizens in the expedition are these. I am told that on a previous occasion the state maintained a mercenary force at Corinth,[*](During the so-called Corinthian War, 394—387, when Iphicrates with a light-armed force destroyed a mora of Spartan hoplites. Chabrias, his successor, is best known for his defeat of the Lacedaemonian fleet at Naxos in 376. Of Polystratus, little or nothing is known.) commanded by Polystratus, Iphicrates, Chabrias, and others, and that you citizens also served in person; and I know from history that you and these mercenaries, fighting shoulder to shoulder, beat the Lacedaemonians in the field. But ever since exclusively mercenary forces have been fighting for you, it is your friends and allies that they have beaten, while the power of your enemies has increased beyond bounds. They cast a casual glance at the war for which Athens has hired them, and off they sail to join Artabazus or anyone else, and the general naturally follows them, for he cannot command if he does not pay.

What then do I recommend? Deprive both general and men of all excuse by providing pay and by attaching to them citizen soldiers as overseers, so to speak, of their conduct in the field; for at present our system is a mockery. If anyone asked you, Are you at peace, Athenians? you would reply, Certainly not; we are at war with Philip.

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;[*](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.) you choose your brigadiers and commanders for the market-place, not for the field.

What! Ought there not to be brigadiers and a cavalry-commander, all chosen from among yourselves, native Athenian officers, that the force might be a truly national one? Yes, but your own cavalry-commander has to sail to Lemnos,[*](We learn from Aristot. Ath. Pol. 61.6, that a ἵππαρχος was regularly sent to Lemnos to take charge of the cavalry there.) leaving Menelaus[*](Identified by Harpocration with a son of Amyntas II. and so half-brother of Philip; more probably a petty Macedonian chief who helped the Athenians at Potidaea in 364, and who is named in a complimentary inscription which has been preserved (C.I.A. 2.55).) to command the men who are fighting for our city’s possessions. I do not say this in his disparagement, but that commander, whoever he is, ought to be one elected by you.

You think perhaps that this is a sound proposal, but you are chiefly anxious to hear what the cost will be and how it will be raised. I now proceed to deal with that point. As to the cost then: the maintenance, the bare rationing of this force, comes to rather more than ninety talents; for the ten fast galleys forty talents, or twenty minae a ship every month; for two thousand men the same amount, that each may receive ten drachmas a month ration-money; for the two hundred cavalry twelve talents, if each is to receive thirty drachmas a month.[*](The proposed pay is 2 obols a day for infantry and marines, 1 drachma for cavalry. The crew of a trireme numbered 200. The daily pay would therefore be: Galleys: 2 ob. x 200 x 10 = 4000 ob. Infantry: 2 ob. x 2000 = 4000 ob. Cavalry: 6 ob. x 200 = 1200 ob. Total, 9200 obols or 15 1/3 minae a day; 460 minae or 7 2/3 talents a month; 92 talents a year. The hoplite normally received 2 obols for pay and the same for rations; the cavalry thrice this amount. Demosthenes’ proposal amounts to this, that the pay should be halved and the men encouraged to make it up by looting. To appreciate these sums, it should he noted that an unskilled laborer at Athens received 3 or 4 obols a day.)

If anyone imagines that ration-money for the men on active service is only a small provision to start with, he is wrong; for I feel quite sure that if no more than that is forthcoming, the force itself will provide the rest out of the war, so as to make up their pay without injury to any Greek or allied community. I am ready to embark as a volunteer and submit to any punishment, if this is not so. I will now tell you the sources from which the sums may be derived which I recommend you to provide.

Memorandum of Ways and Means

This is the scheme, Athenians, which my colleagues[*](On some financial board, or perhaps only members of the same political party. The suggestion of Dionysius that a new speech commences here has not found favor with the majority of editors.) and I have been able to contrive. When you give your votes, you will pass these proposals, if you approve them, because your object is to fight Philip not only with decrees and dispatches, but with deeds also.

But you would, I think, men of Athens, form a better idea of the war and of the total force required, if you considered the geography of the country you are attacking, and if you reflected that the winds and the seasons enable Philip to gain most of his successes by forestalling us. He waits for the Etesian winds[*](Northerly winds which blew steadily down the Aegean in the autumn.) or for the winter, and attacks at a time when we could not possibly reach the seat of war.

Bearing this in mind, we must rely not on occasional levies, or we shall be too late for everything, but on a regular standing army. You have the advantage of winter bases for your troops in Lemnos, Thasos, Sciathos, and the neighboring islands, where are to be found harbors, provisions, and everything that an army needs; and during that season of the year when it is easy to stand close in to shore and the winds are steady, your force will easily lie off his coast and at the mouth of his seaports.

How and when this force is to be employed will be a matter for your duly appointed commander to determine according to circumstances, but what it is your task to provide, that I have put down in my resolution. If, men of Athens, you first provide the funds which I name and then equip the whole force complete, men, ships and cavalry, binding them legally to serve for the duration of the war, and if you make yourselves the stewards and administrators of the funds, looking to your general for an account of his operations, then you will no longer be for ever debating the same question and never making any progress.

More than that, Athenians, you will be depriving Philip of his principal source of revenue. And what is that? For the war against you he makes your allies pay by raiding their sea-borne commerce. Is there any further advantage? Yes, you will be out of reach of injury yourselves. Your past experience will not be repeated, when he threw a force into Lemnos and Imbros and carried your citizens away captive, when he seized the shipping at Geraestus and levied untold sums, or, to crown all, when he landed at Marathon and bore away from our land the sacred trireme,[*](The Paralus, conveying the θεωρίαor state-embassy to Delos in May, touched at Marathon to offer sacrifice in the Δήλιον or sanctuary of Apollo. Readers of the Phaedo will remember why the execution of Socrates was postponed for thirty days.) while you are still powerless to prevent these insults or to send your expeditions at the appointed times.

And yet, men of Athens, how do you account for the fact that the Panathenaic festival and the Dionysia are always held at the right date, whether experts or laymen are chosen by lot to manage them, that larger sums are lavished upon them than upon any one of your expeditions, that they are celebrated with bigger crowds and greater splendor than anything else of the kind in the world, whereas your expeditions invariably arrive too late, whether at Methone or at Pagasae or at Potidaea?

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,[*](A more important function of the gymnasiarch was to equip a team for the torch-race (λαμπαδηφορία).) 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,[*](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.) and go into committee of ways and means, and next we resolve that the fleet shall be manned by resident aliens and freedmen,

then again by citizens, then by substitutes, then, while we thus delay, the object of our cruise is already lost. Thus the time for action is wasted in preparation, but the opportunities of fortune wait not for our dilatoriness and reluctance. The forces which we fancied would serve us as a stop-gap prove incapable when the crucial moment arrives. Meanwhile Philip has the effrontery to send such letters as these to the Euboeans.

Reading of the Letter

Most of what has been read, Athenians, is unfortunately true—possibly, however, not pleasant to listen to. But if all that a speaker passes over, to avoid giving offence, is passed over by the course of events also, then blandiloquence is justified; but if smooth words out of season prove a curse in practice, then it is our disgrace if we hoodwink ourselves, if we shelve whatever is irksome and so miss the time for action,

if we fail to learn the lesson that to manage a war properly you must not follow the trend of events but must forestall them, and that just as an army looks to its general for guidance, so statesmen must guide circumstances, if they are to carry out their policy and not be forced to follow at the heels of chance.

But you, Athenians, possessing unsurpassed resources—fleet, infantry, cavalry, revenues—have never to this very day employed them aright, and yet you carry on war with Philip exactly as a barbarian boxes. The barbarian, when struck, always clutches the place; hit him on the other side and there go his hands. He neither knows nor cares how to parry a blow or how to watch his adversary.