Exordia

I refer to Iphicrates,[*](Iphicrates died in 353 B.C. when Demosthenes was about thirty years of age. The orator’s admiration is revealed in Dem. 21.62-63 and Dem. 23.129-131.) who said, A general must so choose to risk a battle, that not this or that may result but just this, for such were his exact words. The meaning of this was obvious, for he meant that he might come off victorious. So, when you take the field, whoever is leader is master of you, but now each one of yourselves is a general. Thus it is your duty to show yourselves to have made such decisions as will inevitably be good for the State and that you shall not, for the sake of mere hopes of future goods, bring about something not so good as the prosperity you at present enjoy.