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,Contrast Thuc. 1.70. 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.
4
In order, therefore, that I may not censure only— the easiest of all thingsCf.Dem. 1.16. shall explain how I think you may accomplish this, requesting you not to make an uproar or get the idea that I am merely procrastinating and interposing delay. For it is not those who say At once and Today who speak most to the point, for we could not prevent by the present reinforcement what has already happened; but it will be the man who shows what armament, once furnished, will be able to hold out until we either get the upper hand of our enemies or by accepting terms bring the war to an end. For in this way we should no longer suffer aggression in time to come.The preceding six lines are found also in Dem. 4.14-15
