place, deprive him of his chief source of supply. For what is this? Why, he
carries on the war at the cost of your own allies, harrying and plundering those
who sail the seas! And what will you gain besides this? You will place
yourselves out of reach of disaster. It will not be as it was in the past, when
he descended upon Lemnos and Imbros, and went off, with your fellow-citizens as
his prisoners of war, or when he seized the vessels off Geraestus,[n] and levied
an enormous sum from them; or when (last of all) he landed at Marathon, seized
the sacred trireme,[n] and carried it off from the country; while all the time
you can neither prevent these aggressions, nor yet send an expedition which will
arrive when you intend it to arrive. {35} But for what reason do you think, men
of Athens, do the festival of the Panathenaea and the festival of the
Dionysia[n] always take place at the proper time, whether those to whom the
charge of either festival is allotted are specially qualified persons or not--
festivals upon which you spend larger sums of money than upon any armament
whatsoever, and which involve an amount of trouble[n] and preparation, which are
unique, so far as I know, in the whole world--; and yet your armaments are
always behind the time--at Methone, at Pagasae, at Potidaea? {36} It is because
for the festivals all is arranged by law. Each of you knows long beforehand who
is to supply the chorus,[n] and who is to be steward of the games,[n] for his
tribe: he knows what he is to receive, and when, and from whom, and what he is
to do with it. No detail is here neglected, nothing is left indefinite. But in
all that concerns war and our preparation for it, there is no organization, no
revision, no definiteness. Consequently it is not until the news comes that we
appoint our trierarchs and institute exchanges of property for them, and inquire
into ways and means. When that is done, we first resolve that the resident
aliens and the independent freedmen[n] shall go on board; then we change our
minds and say that citizens shall embark; then that we will send substitutes;
and while all these delays are occurring, the object of the expedition is
already lost. {37} For we spend on preparation the time when we should be
acting, and the opportunities which events afford will not wait for our slothful