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,