Next, there is his campaign against Evagoras. Evagoras is ruler over but a single citySalamis; he is given over to the Persians by the terms of the TreatySee terms of Treaty of Antalcidas given in note on 115.; his is an insular power and he has already sustained a disaster to his fleet; he has, at present, for the defense of his territory only three thousand light-armed troops; yet, humble as is the power of Evagoras, the King has not the power to conquer it in war, but has already frittered away six years in the attempt; and, if we may conjecture the future by the past, there is much more likelihood that someone else will rise in revolt before Evagoras is reduced by the siege—so slothful is the King in his enterprises.

Again, in the Rhodian War,The war between Persia and Sparta which ended with the battle of Cnidus, 394 B.C. Conon, after the battle of Aegospotami in which he had been one of the generals, took service with the Persians, and was the captain of the fleet in this battle. the King had the good will of the allies of Lacedaemon because of the harshness with which they were governed, he availed himself of the help of our seamen; and at the head of his forces was Conon, who was the most competent of our generals, who possessed more than any other the confidence of the Hellenes, and who was the most experienced in the hazards of war; yet, although the King had such a champion to help him in the war, he suffered the fleet which bore the brunt of the defense of Asia to be bottled up for three years by only an hundred ships, and for fifteen months he deprived the soldiers of their pay; and the result would have been, had it depended upon the King alone, that they would have been disbanded more than once; but, thanks to their commanderConon. and to the alliance which was formed at Corinth,The alliance of Argos, Thebes, Athens, Euboea, Corinth, and Sparta, formed at Corinth (Xen. Hell. 4.4.1). they barely succeeded in winning a naval victory.

And these were the most royal and the most imposing of his achievements, and these are the deeds about which people are never weary of speaking who are fain to exalt the power of the barbarians! So no one can say that I am not fair in my use of instances, nor that I dwell upon the minor undertakings of the King and pass over the most important;

for I have striven to forestall just such a complaint, and have recounted the most glorious of his exploits. I do not, however, forget his minor campaigns; I do not forget that Dercylidas,Succeeded Thimbron as commander of the Spartan fleet, 399 B.C. He is said to have taken nine cities in eight days (Xen. Hell. 3.2.1). with a thousand heavy-armed troops, extended his power over Aeolis; that DracoAppointed harmost of Atarneus by Dercylidas, 398 B.C. (Xen. Hell. 3.2.11). took possession of Atarneus, and afterwards collected an army of three thousand light-armed men, and devastated the plains of Mysia; that Thimbron,Admiral of Spartan fleet 400 B.C. (Xen. Hell. 3.1.4). with a force only a little larger, crossed over into Lydia and plundered the whole country; and that Agesilaus, with the help of the army of Cyrus, conquered almost all the territory this side of the Halys river.The campaign of Agesilaus occurred in 395 B.C. (Xen. Hell. 3.4.20).

And assuredly we have no greater reason to fear the army which wanders aboutContemptuous, recalling Aristoph. Ach. 81. with the King nor the valor of the Persians themselves; for they were clearly shown by the troops who marched inlandThe famous “ten thousand” led by Cleararchus, a Spartan, were employed by Cyrus, the younger son of Dareius, against his brother Artaxerxes, the Persian king, 401-399. The death of Cyrus, due to his rashness in the very moment of victory, deprived the rebellion of its leader and left the Greek army stranded in the heart of Asia. Xenophon, who has described this expedition in the , led the remnant of this army after many months of hardship back to the shore of the Black Sea. See Grote, viii. pp. 3O3 ff. The expedition, though unsuccessful in its purpose, was regarded as a triumph of courage and a demonstration of the superiority of the Greeks over the Persians in warfare. The episode is used in Isoc. 5.90-93 with the same point as here. with Cyrus to be no better than the King's soldiers who live on the coast. I refrain from speaking of all the other battles in which the Persians were worsted, and I am willing to grant that they were split with factions, and so where not inclined to throw themselves wholeheartedly into the struggle against the King's brother.

But after Cyrus had been killed, and all the people of Asia had joined forces, even under these favorable conditions they made such a disgraceful failure of the war as to leave for those who are in the habit of vaunting Persian valor not a word to say. For they had to deal with only six thousand HellenesXen. Anab. 5.3.3 gives the survivors of the battle of Cunaxa as 8600.—not picked troops, but men who, owing to stress of circumstances, were unable to live in their own cities.Cf. Isoc. 4.168; Isoc. 5.96, 120, 121; Isoc. Letter 9.9. These were, moreover, unfamiliar with the country; they had been deserted by their allies; they had been betrayed by those who made the expedition with them; they had been deprived of the general whom they had followed;

and yet the Persians were so inferior to these men that the King, finding himself in difficult straits and having no confidence in the force which was under his own command, did not scruple to arrest the captains of the auxiliaries in violation of the truce,Clearchus and four other captains were invited to a parley, under a truce, and treacherously slain (Xen. Anab. 2.5.31). Cf. Isoc. 5.91, where Isocrates uses the same language as here. hoping by this lawless act to throw their army into confusion, and preferring to offend against the gods rather than join issue openly with these soldiers.

But when he failed in this plot—for the soldiers not only stood together but bore their misfortune nobly,—then, as they set out on their journey home, he sent with them Tissaphernes and the Persian cavalry. But although these kept plotting against them throughout the entire journey,Tissaphernes, one of the four generals of Artaxerxes, engaged to furnish safe escort to the Greeks but, in fact, beset their march with treachery (Xen. Anab. 2.4.9). the Hellenes continued their march to the end as confidently as if they had been under friendly escort, dreading most of all the uninhabited regions of that country, and deeming it the best possible fortune to fall in with as many of the enemy as possible.

Let me sum up the whole matter: These men did not set out to get plunder or to capture a town, but took the field against the King himself, and yet they returned in greater security than ambassadors who go to him on a friendly mission. Therefore it seems to me that in every quarter the Persians have clearly exposed their degeneracy; for along the coast of Asia they have been defeated in many battles, and when they crossed to Europe they were duly punished, either perishing miserably or saving their lives with dishonor; and to crown all, they made themselves objects of derision under the very walls of their King's palace.See Xen. Anab. 2.4.4. Cf. Isoc. 9.58.

And none of these things has happened by accident, but all of them have been due to natural causes; for it is not possible for people who are reared and governed as are the Persians, either to have a part in any other form of virtue or to set up on the field of battle trophies of victory over their foes.For effeminacy of the Persians see Isoc. 5.124. For how could either an able general or a good soldier be produced amid such ways of life as theirs? Most of their population is a mob without discipline or experience of dangers, which has lost all stamina for war and has been trained more effectively for servitude than are the slaves in our country.

Those, on the other hand, who stand highest in repute among them have never governed their lives by dictates of equality or of common interest or of loyalty to the state; on the contrary, their whole existence consists of insolence toward some, and servility towards others—a manner of life than which nothing could be more demoralizing to human nature. Because they are rich, they pamper their bodies; but because they are subject to one man's power, they keep their souls in a state of abject and cringing fear, parading themselves at the door of the royal palace, prostrating themselves, and in every way schooling themselves to humility of spirit, falling on their knees before a mortal man, addressing him as a divinity, and thinking more lightly of the gods than of men.

So it is that those of the Persians who come down to the sea, whom they term satraps,Viceroys of the king—provincial governors. do not dishonor the training which they receive at home, but cling steadfastly to the same habits: they are faithless to their friends and cowardly to their foes; their lives are divided between servility on the one hand and arrogance on the other; they treat their allies with contempt and pay court to their enemies.

For example, they maintained the army under Agesilaus at their own expense for eight months,See Xen. Hell. 3.4.26; Grote, ix. p. 92. but they deprived the soldiers who were fighting in the Persian cause of their pay for double that length of time; they distributed an hundred talents among the captors of Cisthene,Cisthene was probably a town in Asia Minor captured by Agesilaus in the campaign. but treated more outrageously than their prisoners of war the troops who supported them in the campaign against Cyprus.

To put it briefly—and not to speak in detail but in general terms,— who of those that have fought against them has not come off with success, and who of those that have fallen under their power has not perished from their atrocities? Take the case of Conon,Conon was one of the Athenian generals at the battle of Aegospatomi. After that disaster he left Greece and took service with the Persians against Sparta, and was instrumental in the defeat of the Spartan fleet at the battle of Cnidus. For the treachery referred to here see Grote, ix. p. 187. who, as commander in the service of Asia, brought an end to the power of the Lacadaemonians: did they not shamelessly seize him for punishment by death? Take, on the other hand, the case of Themistocles,Themistocles, commander of the Athenian fleet at Salamis, was later ostracized and took refuge at the Persian court. See Grote, v. p. 138. who in the service of Hellas defeated them at Salamis: did they not think him worthy of the greatest gifts?

Then why should we cherish the friendship of men who punish their benefactors and so openly flatter those who do them injury? Who is there among us whom they have not wronged? When have they given the Hellenes a moment's respite from their treacherous plots? What in our world is not hateful to them who did not shrink in the earlier war from rifling even the images and temples of the gods, and burning them to the ground?When they captured Athens. See Isoc. 4.96; Hdt. 8.53; Aesch. Pers. 809.

Therefore, the Ionians deserve to be commended because, when their sanctuaries had been burned, they invoked the wrath of Heaven upon any who should disturb the ruins or should desire to restore their shrines as they were of old;There is no other authority for this oath of the Ionians. A similar oath is, however, attributed by Lyc. 1.81, to the collective Greeks before the battle of Plataea. and they did this, not because they lacked the means to rebuild them, but in order that there might be left a memorial to future generations of the impiety of the barbarians, and that none might put their trust in men who do not scruple to commit such sins against our holy temples, but that all might be on their guard against them and fear them, seeing that they waged that war not against our persons only, but even against our votive offerings to the gods.

Of my own countrymen also I have a similar tale to tell. For towards all other peoples with whom they have been at war, they forget their past enmities the moment they have concluded peace, but toward the Asiatics they feel no gratitude even when they receive favors from them; so eternal is the wrath which they cherish against the barbarians.See Plat. Rep. 470c; Livy 31.29, “cum barbaris omnibus Graecis bellum est eritque.” Again, our fathers condemned many to deathSee Hdt. 9.5; Lyc. 1.122; Dem. 19.270. for defection to the Medes; in our public assemblies even to this day, before any other business is transacted, the Athenians call down cursesThe custom is attributed to Aristeides by Plut. Arist. 10. upon any citizen who proposes friendly overtures to the Persians; and, at the celebration of the Mysteries, the Eumolpidae and the Kerykes,The priests at Eleuis belonged to families traditionally descended from Eumolpus and Keryx. because of our hatred of the Persians, give solemn warning to the other barbarians also, even as to men guilty of murder, that they are for ever banned from the sacred rites.See Hdt. 8.65; Lobeck, , i. p. 15.

So ingrained in our nature is our hostility to them that even in the matter of our stories we linger most fondly over those which tell of the Trojan and the Persian wars,Cf. Isoc. 9.6. because through them we learn of our enemies' misfortunes; and you will find that our warfare against the barbarians has inspired our hymns, while that against the Hellenes has brought forth our dirges;“Victories over the barbarians call for hymns, but victories over the Hellenes for dirges,” said Gorgias in his , and Isocrates may have had his words in mind. The Gorgias fragment is quoted by Philostr. 493. and that the former are sung at our festivals, while we recall the latter on occasions of sorrow.

Moreover, I think that even the poetry of Homer has won a greater renown because he has nobly glorified the men who fought against the barbarians, and that on this account our ancestors determined to give his art a place of honor in our musical contests and in the education of our youth,See Plat. Hipparch. 228b; Plat. Rep. 606e, and Aristoph. Frogs 1035. in order that we, hearing his verses over and over again, may learn by heart the enmity which stands from of old between us and them, and that we, admiring the valor of those who were in the war against Troy, may conceive a passion for like deeds.

So it seems to me that the motives which summon us to enter upon a war against them are many indeed; but grief among them is the present opportunity, which we must not throw away; for it is disgraceful to neglect a chance when it is present and regret it when it is past. Indeed, what further advantage could we desire to have on our side when contemplating a war against the King beyond those which are now at hand?