30
This is the scheme, Athenians, which my colleaguesOn some financial board, or perhaps only members of the same political party. The suggestion of Dionysius that a new speech commences here has not found favor with the majority of editors. and I have been able to contrive. When you give your votes, you will pass these proposals, if you approve them, because your object is to fight Philip not only with decrees and dispatches, but with deeds also.
31
But you would, I think, men of Athens, form a better idea of the war and of the total force required, if you considered the geography of the country you are attacking, and if you reflected that the winds and the seasons enable Philip to gain most of his successes by forestalling us. He waits for the Etesian windsNortherly winds which blew steadily down the Aegean in the autumn. or for the winter, and attacks at a time when we could not possibly reach the seat of war.
32
Bearing this in mind, we must rely not on occasional levies, or we shall be too late for everything, but on a regular standing army. You have the advantage of winter bases for your troops in Lemnos, Thasos, Sciathos, and the neighboring islands, where are to be found harbors, provisions, and everything that an army needs; and during that season of the year when it is easy to stand close in to shore and the winds are steady, your force will easily lie off his coast and at the mouth of his seaports.
