History of the Peloponnesian War

"We live under a form of government which does not emulate the institutions of our neighbours[*](Alluding to the Spartans, whose institutions were said to have been borrowed from Crete; in fact, throughout the whole speech the constrast is with Spartan conditions.); on the contrary, we are ourselves a model which some[*](Possible allusion to the embassy sent from Rome in 454 B.c. to examine the laws of Solon (Livy 3. 31).) follow, rather than the imitators of other peoples. It is true that our government is called a democracy, because its administration is in the hands, not of the few, but of the many; yet while as regards the law all men are on an equality for the settlement of their private disputes, as regards the value set on them it is as each man is in any way distinguished that he is preferred to public honours, not because he belongs to a particular class, but because of personal merits; nor, again, on the ground of poverty is a man barred from a public career by obscurity of rank if he but has it in him to do the state a service.

And not only in our public life are we liberal, but also as regards our freedom from suspicion of one another in the pursuits of every-day life; for we do not feel resentment at our neighbour if he does as he likes, nor yet do we put on sour looks which, though harmless, are painful to behold.

But while we thus avoid giving offence in our private intercourse, in our public life we are restrained from lawlessness chiefly through reverent fear, for we render obedience to those in authority and to the laws, and especially to those laws which are ordained for the succour of the oppressed and those which, though unwritten, bring upon the transgressor a disgrace which all men recognize.