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It is also expedient to divert the people’s interest to other useful things, as Demades did when he had the revenues of the State in his charge; for when the people were eager to send out triremes to aid those who were in revolt against Alexander,In 330 b.c. King Agis of Sparta headed the revolt. and were urging him to furnish funds, You have, he said, funds available, for I have made preparations for the Pitcher FestivalThe second day of the Anthesteria, a three-day festival in worship of Dionysus, held in early spring at Athens. so that each of you is to receive a half-mina, but if you had rather apply the funds to this other purpose, use your own money for the festival. And in this way, since they gave up the expedition in order not to lose the distribution of money, he removed any ground of complaint on Alexander’s part against the people of Athens. For there are many unprofitable measures which the statesman cannot avert by direct means, but he must use some sort of roundabout and circuitous methods, such as Phocion employed when ordered at an inopportune time to invade Boeotia. He immediately issued a proclamation Cf. Life of Phocion, chap. xxiv. calling all those from the age of military service up to sixty years to join the ranks, and when the older men made a violent protest, he said: What is there terrible about it? For I, your general, who am eighty years old, shall be with you. So in this way we should prevent inopportune embassies by listing among the envoys many who are not qualified to go, and useless construction by calling for contributions, and improper lawsuits and missions abroad by ordering the parties to appear in court together and together to go abroad on the missions. And those who propose such measures and incite the people to adopt them should be the first to be haled into court and made to take the responsibility for putting them into effect; for so they will either draw back and appear to be themselves nullifying the measure or they will stick to it and share its unpleasant features.
