History of the Peloponnesian War

"I will begin at our ancestors; being a thing both just and honest that to them first be given the honour of remembrance in this kind. For they, having been always the inhabitants of this region, by their valour have delivered the same to succession of posterity hitherto in the state of liberty.

For which they deserve commendation, but our fathers deserve yet more; for that besides what descended on them, not without great labour of their own they have purchased this our present dominion and delivered the same over to us that now are.