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[24] 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,1 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.

1 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.

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