I, however, take the view, in the first place, that it is no sign that we ruled badly if some of those who were at war with us are shown to have been severely disciplined, but that a much clearer proof that we administered the affairs of our allies wisely is seen in the fact that among the states which remained our loyal subjects not one experienced these disasters.

In the second place, if other states had dealt more leniently with the same circumstances, they might reasonably censure us; but since that is not the case, and it is impossible to control so great a multitude of states without disciplining those who offend, does it not follow that we deserve praise because we acted harshly in the fewest possible cases and were yet able to hold our dominion for the greatest length of time?

But I believe that all men are of the opinion that those will prove the best leaders and champions of the Hellenes under whom in the past those who yielded obedience have fared the best. Well, then, it will be found that under our supremacy the private households grew most prosperous and that the commonwealths also became greatest. For we were not jealous of the growing states,In this and the following paragraphs we have a summing up of the spirit of the Athenian hegemony in contrast to that of the Spartan supremacy described in 115 ff. Cf. Isoc. 12.59 ff.

nor did we engender confusion among them by setting up conflicting polities side by side, in order that faction might be arrayed against faction and that both might court our favor. On the contrary, we regarded harmony among our allies as the common boon of all, and therefore we governed all the cities under the same laws, deliberating about them in the spirit of allies, not of masters;

guarding the interests of the whole confederacy but leaving each member of it free to direct its own affairs; supporting the people but making war on despotic powers,tai=s dunastei/ais means simply “powers” in 81, but commonly powers not responsible to the people—oligarchies as here or tyrannies as in 39. considering it an outrage that the many should be subject to the few, that those who were poorer in fortune but not inferior in other respects should be banished from the offices, that, furthermore, in a fatherland which belongs to all in commonA pan-Hellenic sentiment. Cf. 81. some should hold the place of masters, others of aliens,Citizens under oligarchies are without rights; they are like the metics in Athens—residents on sufferance. and that men who are citizens by birthBy fu/sis, nature. Cf. “All men are created equal.” The contrast between nature and convention— fu/sis and no/mos—was a favorite topic of discussion among the sophists. Cf. an echo of it in Isoc. 1.10. should be robbed by law of their share in the government.

It was because we had these objections, and others besides, to oligarchies that we established the same polityA democratic government. Cf. Isoc. 12.54 ff. in the other states as in Athens itself—a polity which I see no need to extol at greater length, since I can tell the truth about it in a word: They continued to live under this regime for seventy years,A round number. So Lys. 2.55. Demosthenes reckons the period of supremacy more accurately at 73 years, 477-404. In Isoc. 12.56 Isocrates reckons it at 65 years—roughly from the Confederacy of Delos to the Athenian disaster in Sicily, which was really the beginning of the end of the Athenian supremacy. and, during this time, they experienced no tyrannies, they were free from the domination of the barbarians, they were untroubled by internal factions, and they were at peace with all the world.

On account of these services it becomes all thinking men to be deeply grateful to us, much rather than to reproach us because of our system of colonization;Allotments of lands to Athenian colonists in Greek territory, as in Scione and Melos. See note on 101. For these “cleruchies,” as they were called, see Gardner and Jevons, pp. 602 ff. for we sent our colonies into the depopulated states for the protection of their territories and not for our own aggrandizement. And here is proof of this: We had in proportion to the number of our citizens a very small territory,The total population including foreign residents and slaves is reckoned at about 500,000; the total area is about 700 square miles. but a very great empire; we possessed twice as many ships of war as all the rest combined,See Thuc. 2.13 and Thuc. 8.79. and these were strong enough to engage double their number; at the very borders of Attica lay Euboea,

which was not only fitted by her situation to command the sea, but also surpassed all the islands in her general resources,Herodotus characterizes Euboea as a “large and prosperous” island, Hdt. 5.31. Cf. Thuc. 8.96. and Euboea lent itself more readily to our control than did our own country besides, while we knew that both among the Hellenes and among the barbarians those are regarded most highly who have driven their neighbors from their homesThis cynical remark points to the Spartan conquest of Messene. and have so secured for themselves a life of affluence and ease, nevertheless, none of these considerations tempted us to wrong the people of the island;

on the contrary, we alone of those who have obtained great power suffered ourselves to live in more straitened circumstances than those who were reproached with being our slaves.Probably a taunt flung at the Euboeans and all who were under the protection and influence of Athens. And yet, had we been disposed to seek our own advantage, we should not, I imagine, have set our hearts on the territory of Scione (which, as all the world knows, we gave over to our Plataean refugees),When their city was destroyed in the Peloponnesian War, 427 B.C., the Plataeans took refuge in Athens and were later settled in Scione. At the close of the war they were forced to leave Scione and again found refuge in Athens. By the Peace of Antalcidas they were restored to their own territory only to be driven from their homes by the Thebans in 372 B.C. Once more Athens became their refuge. See Isoc. 14.13 ff. and passed over this great territory which would have enriched us all.

Now although we have shown ourselves to be of such character and have given so convincing proof that we do not covet the possessions of others, we are brazenly denounced by those who had a hand in the decarchiesIn Athens and in other states under ther influence there was in the oligarchical party a group of Spartan sympathizers who out-Spartaned the Spartans. After the downfall of Athens at the close of the Peloponnesian war, when Sparta became the supreme power in Greece, 404 B.C., governing commissions of ten (“decarchies”) composed of these extremists, with a Spartan harmost and garrison to support them, were set up in most of these states by the Spartan general Lysander (Xen. Hell. 3.4.2). In Athens the “decarchy” succeeded the rule of the thirty tyrants. Compare what Isocrates says here about the decarchies with Isoc. 5.95 and Isoc. 12.54.—men who have befouled their own countries, who have made the crimes of the past seem insignificant, and have left the would-be scoundrels of the future no chance to exceed their villiany; and who, for all that, profess to follow the ways of Lacedaemon, when they practise the very opposite, and bewail the disasters of the Melians, when they have shamelessly inflicted irreparable wrongs upon their own citizens. For what crime have they overlooked?

What act of shame or outrage is wanting in their careers? They regarded the most lawless of men as the most loyal; they courted traitors as if they were benefactors; they chose to be slaves to one of the HelotsThe reference is to Lysander, who on his mother's side was of Helot blood. The Helots were serfs of the Spartans. so that they might oppress their own countries; they honored the assassins and murderers of their fellow-citizens more than their own parents;

and to such a stage of brutishness did they bring us all that, whereas in former times, because of the prosperity which prevailed, every one of us found many to sympathize with him even in trifling reverses, yet under the rule of these men, because of the multitude of our own calamities, we ceased feeling pity for each other, since there was no man to whom they allowed enough of respite so that he could share another's burdens.

For what man dwelt beyond their reach? What man was so far removed from public life that he was not forced into close touch with the disasters into which such creatures plunged us? But in the face of all this, these men, who brought their own cities to such a pitch of anarchy, do not blush to make unjust charges against our city; nay, to crown their other effronteries, they even have the audacity to talk of the private and public suits which were once tried in Athens, when they themselves put to death without trial more menIn Athens 1500, according to Isoc. 7.67; Isoc. 20.11. in the space of three months than Athens tried during the whole period of her supremacy.

And of their banishments, their civil strife, their subversion of laws, their political revolutions, their atrocities upon children, their insults to women, their pillage of estates, who could tell the tale? I can only say this much of the whole business—the severities under our administration could have been readily brought to an end by a single vote of the people,Such a decree of the Ecclesia as was passed in 378 B.C., when the new confederacy was formed, absolving the allies from paying tribute and from the practice of trying their cases in Athens. These had been the causes of friction. See Isoc. 12.63. while the murders and acts of violence under their regime are beyond any power to remedy.

And, furthermore, not even the present peace, nor yet that “autonomy” which is inscribed in the treatiesAbove all, the Treaty or Peace of Antalcidas, 387 B.C. Cf. Isoc. 4.120 ff. Xen. Hell. 5.1.31, quotes from this treaty: “King Artaxerxes thinks it just that the cities in Asia, and the islands of Clazomene and Cyprus, shall belong to him. He thinks it just also to leave all the other cities autonomous, both small and great—except Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which are to belong to Athens, as they did originally. Should any parties refuse to accept this peace, I will make war upon them, along with those who are of the same mind, by land as well as by sea, with ships and with money” (Trans. by Grote, ix. p. 212). See General Introduction. p. xliii, and introduction to . but is not found in our governments, is preferable to the rule of Athens. For who would desire a condition of things where pirates command the seasIn the absence of the Athenian fleet. and mercenaries occupy our cities;

where fellow-countrymen, instead of waging war in defense of their territories against strangers, are fighting within their own wallsCf. Xen. Hell. 5.2.1. against each other; where more cities have been captured in warCf. Isoc. 12.97. than before we made the peace; and where revolutions follow so thickly upon each other that those who are at home in their own countries are more dejected than those who have been punished with exile? For the former are in dread of what is to come, while the latter live ever in the hope of their return.

And so far are the states removed from “freedom” and “autonomy”Freedom and autonomy—a single idea; see General Introd. p xxxii; Isoc. 14.24; Isoc. Letter 8.7. that some of them are ruled by tyrants, some are controlled by alien governors, some have been sacked and razed,See Isoc. 4.126. and some have become slaves to the barbarians—the same barbarians whom we once so chastened for their temerity in crossing over into Europe, and for their overweening pride,

that they not only ceased from making expeditions against us, but even endured to see their own territory laid waste;Allusion is to the victory of Conon at the Eurymedon, 466 B.C. and we brought their power so low, for all that they had once sailed the sea with twelve hundred ships, that they launched no ship of war this side of PhaselisCf. Isoc. 7.80. There appears to have been a definite treaty setting bounds beyond which neither the sea nor land forces of Persia might go: see Isoc. 4.120 and Isoc. 12.59-61; also Dem. 19.273; Lyc. 1.73. This was the so-called Treaty of Callias: see Grote, v. pp. 192 ff. but remained inactive and waited on more favorable times rather than trust in the forces which they then possessed.

And that this state of affairs was due to the valor of our ancestors has been clearly shown in the fortunes of our city: for the very moment when we were deprived of our dominion marked the beginning of a dominionFor this play of words— a)rxh/, “beginning,” and arxh/, “dominion”—cf. Isoc. 3.28, Isoc. 8.101, Isoc. 5.61. of ills for the Hellenes. In fact, after the disaster which befell us in the Hellespont,Battle of Aegospotami 405 B.C. when our rivals took our place as leaders, the barbarians won a naval victory,At the battle of Cnidus, but with the help of Conon. became rulers of the sea, occupied most of the islands,See Xen. Hell. 4.8.7. made a landing in Laconia, took Cythera by storm, and sailed around the whole Peloponnesus, inflicting damage as they went.

One may best comprehend how great is the reversal in our circumstances if he will read side by side the treatiesSee Isoc. 4.115 and note. which were made during our leadership and those which have been published recently; for he will find that in those days we were constantly setting limits to the empire of the King,Cf. Isoc. 4.118 and note. levying tribute on some of his subjects, and barring him from the sea; now, however, it is he who controls the destinies of the Hellenes, who dictatesCf. Isoc. 4.175; Xen. Hell. 6.3.9. what they must each do, and who all but sets up his viceroys in their cities.