income, as compared with the poorer members of the Boards,[1] and in managing
the business of the Boards they sometimes contrived to exact the whole sum from
their colleagues, and to escape payment themselves. At the same time the duties
of the several Boards and their members were not allocated with sufficient
precision to enable the responsibility to be brought home in case of default;
and the nominal Twelve Hundred had fallen to a much smaller number, on whom the
burden accordingly fell with undue weight. Demosthenes' proposal provided for
the distribution of the responsibility of equipping the vessels and providing
the funds, in the most detailed manner, with a view to preventing all evasion;
but it was not carried. In fact, it was not until 340 that he succeeded in
reforming the trierarchy, and he then made the burden vary strictly with
property. The proposal, however, to declare war upon Persia went no further.

While, in this speech, Demosthenes is in accord with the policy of Eubulus, so
far as concerns the avoidance of war with Persia, his proposals of financial
reform would not be viewed with favour by the wealthy men who were Eubulus' firm
supporters. Some of the themes which recur continually in later speeches are
prominent in this--the futility of rhetorical appeals to past glories, without
readiness for personal service, and the need of a thorough organization of the
forces. While the speech shows rather too strongly the marks of careful
preparation, and seldom rises to eloquence--the style, indeed, is often rather
cramped and stiff, and the sentiments, especially at the beginning, artificially
phrased--it is moderate and practical in tone, and shows a characteristic
mastery of minute detail.]


{1} Those who praise your forefathers,[n] men of Athens, desire, no doubt, to
gratify you by their speeches; and yet I do not think that they are acting in
the interests of those whom they praise. For the subject on which they attempt
to speak is one to which no words can do justice; and so, although they thus win