The Acharnians, page 28 by Aristophanes
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LAMACHUS They elected me...
DICAEOPOLIS Yes, three cuckoos did![1] If I have concluded peace, 'twas disgust that drove me; for I see men with hoary heads in the ranks and young fellows of your age shirking service. Some are in Thrace getting an allowance of three drachmae, such fellows as Tisamenophoenippus and Panurgipparchides. The others are with Chares or in Chaonia, men like Geretotheodorus and Diomialazon; there are some of the same kidney, too, at Camarina and at Gela,[2] the laughing-stock of all and sundry.
f[1] Indicates the character of his election, which was arranged, so Aristophanes implies, by his partisans. f[2] Town in Sicily. There is a pun on the name Gela and 'ridiculous' which it is impossible to keep in English. Apparently the Athenians had sent embassies to all parts of the Greek world to arrange treaties of alliance in view of the struggle with the Lacedaemonians; but only young debauchees of aristocratic connections had been chosen as envoys.
LAMACHUS They were elected.
DICAEOPOLIS And why do you always receive your pay, when none of these others ever gets any? Speak, Marilades, you have grey hair; well then, have you ever been entrusted with a mission? See! he shakes his head. Yet he is an active as well as a prudent man. And you, Dracyllus, Euphorides or Prinides, have you knowledge of Ecbatana or Chaonia? You say no, do you not? Such offices are good for the son of Caesyra[1] and Lamachus, who, but yesterday ruined with debt, never pay their shot, and whom all their friends avoid as foot passengers dodge the folks who empty their slops out of window.
f[1] A contemporary orator apparently, otherwise unknown.
LAMACHUS Oh! in freedom's name! are such exaggerations to be borne?
DICAEOPOLIS Lamachus is well content; no doubt he is well paid, you know.
LAMACHUS But I propose always to war with the Peloponnesians, both at sea, on land and everywhere to make them tremble, and trounce them soundly.
DICAEOPOLIS For my o