Isocrates Panathenaicus 143

[143] Abhorring these iniquities and the men who practise them, our forefathers set up as counsellors and leaders of the state, not any and everyone, but those who were the wisest and the best and who had lived the noblest lives among them, and they chose these same men as their generals in the field ¹ and sent them forth as ambassadors, wherever any need arose, and they gave over to them the entire guidance of the state, believing that those who desired and were able to give the best counsel from the platform would, when by themselves, no matter in what regions of the world or on what enterprise engaged, be of the same way of thinking.