[3]
For just as a man would properly employ a force in arms, men of Athens, you are accustomed to handle your
deliberations, with dispatch. What you ought to do, however, is to deliberate at leisure
but put your decisions into effect with speed,1 and to make up your minds to this, that
unless you shall provide an adequate food-supply and place some general of good sense in
charge of the war, and be willing to abide by the decisions so taken, you will have to
your credit just a lot of decrees, and while you will have squandered all that you have
spent, your interests will be not a whit advanced and in angry mood you will put on trial
whomever it pleases you. For my part, I wish you to be seen repelling your enemies before
sitting in judgement on your fellow-citizens; for it is a crime for us to make war upon
one another rather than upon them.
1 Contrast Thuc. 1.70.