Like puppet-makers, you elect your infantry and cavalry officers for the market-place, not for war.
Demosthenes: “Like puppet-makers, you elect your infantry and cavalry officers for the market-place, not for war.”
Editor's note · Context
Demosthenes uses a vivid metaphor to criticize the Athenians for choosing military officers based on their suitability for civic life rather than their competence in warfare.
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You can not surely allege, that Aristodemus ought to be of importance at Athens, and Athens to be of no account among the Greeks.
For this reason he will show us no mercy, if he get us into his power: and therefore you must make up your minds, that the struggle will be one for life and death.
He is convinced, you will not submit to be slaves; if you were inclined, you would not know how, having been accustomed to command: you will be able, should occasion offer, to give him more trouble than any people in the world.
Yea, among these men, some have risen rapidly from poverty to wealth, from meanness and obscurity to repute and honor, while you, on the contrary, have fallen from honor to obscurity, from wealth to indigence.





