hoot him!' will be competent to cut
down whomsoever he pleases untried, be it general or private soldier,
if only he have sufficient followers, as was the case just now. But
just consider what these self-appointed generals have achieved for
you. Zelarchus, the clerk of the market, may possibly have done you a
wrong; if so, he has sailed off and is gone without paying you any
penalty; or he may be guiltless, in which case we have driven him from
the army in terror of perishing unjustly without a trial. While those
who stoned the ambassadors have contrived so cleverly that we alone of
all Hellenes cannot approach Cerasus safely without a strong force,
and the corpses which the very men who slew them themselves invited us
to bury, we cannot now pick up with safety even under a flag of truce.
Who indeed would care to carry a flag of truce, or go as a herald with 30
the blood of heralds upon his hands? All we could do was to implore
the Cerasuntines to bury them.

"If then you approve of such doings, have a resolution passed to that
effect, so that, with a prospect of like occurrences in the future, a
man may privately set up a guard and do his best to fix his tent where
he can find a strong position with a commanding site. If, however,
these seem to you to be the deeds rather of wild beasts than of human
beings, bethink you of some means by which to stay them; or else, in
heaven's name, how shall we do sacrifice to the gods gladly, with
impious deeds to answer for? or how shall we, who lay the knife to
each other's throats, give battle to our enemies? What friendly city
will receive us when they see rampant lawlessness in our midst? Who
will have the courage to afford us a market, when we prove our
worthlessness in these weightiest concerns? and what becomes of the
praise we expect to win from the mouths of men? who will vouchsafe it
to us, if this is our behaviour? Should we not ourselves bestow the
worst of names on the perpetrators of like deeds?"

After this they rose, and, as one man, proposed that the ringleaders
in these matters should be punished; and that for the future, to set
an example of lawlessness should be forbidden. Every such ringleader
was to be prosecuted on the capital charge; the generals were to bring
all offenders to the bar of justice; prosecutions for all other
misdemeanours committed since the death of Cyrus were to be
instituted; and they ended by constituting the officers into a board
of dica