So, then, the other speakers also should have made this their starting-point and should not have given advice on matters about which we agree before instructing us on the points about which we disagree. I, at all events, am justified by a twofold motive in devoting most of my attention to these points: first and foremost, in order that some good may come of it, and that we may put an end to our mutual rivalries and unite in a war against the barbarian;

and, secondly, if this is impossible, in order that I may show who they are that stand in the way of the happiness of the Hellenes, and that all may be made to see that even as in times past Athens justly held the sovereignty of the sea, so now she not unjustly lays claim to the hegemony.This claim was made good two years later when the new confederacy was formed. See General Introd. p. xxxvii. The Greek word “hegemony”—leadership, supremacy—is often used in the particular sense of acknowledged headship of confederated states, as here.

For in the first place, if it is the most experienced and the most capable who in any field of action deserve to be honored, it is without question our right to recover the hegemony which we formerly possessed; for no one can point to another state which so far excels in warfare on land as our city is superior in fighting battles on the sea.

But, in the next place, if there are any who do not regard this as a fair basis of judgement, since the reversals of fortune are frequent (for sovereignty never remains in the same hands), and who believe that the hegemony, like any other prize, should be held by those who first won this honor, or else by those who have rendered the most service to the Hellenes, I think that these also are on our side;

for the farther back into the past we go in our examination of both these titles to leadership, the farther behind shall we leave those who dispute our claims. For it is admitted that our city is the oldestSee Isoc. 12.124 and Hdt. 7.161. and the greatestThe same boast is made in Isoc. 10.35 and Isoc. 15.299. in the world and in the eyes of all men the most renowned. But noble as is the foundation of our claims, the following grounds give us even a clearer title to distinction:

for we did not become dwellers in this land by driving others out of it,In contrast particularly to the ancestors of the Spartans when they established themselves in the Peloponnesus. nor by finding it uninhabited, nor by coming together here a motley horde composed of many races; but we are of a lineage so noble and so pure that throughout our history we have continued in possession of the very land which gave us birth, since we are sprung from its very soilThe “autochthony” of the Athenians was a common theme of Athenian orators and poets: Isoc. 8.49, Isoc. 12.124-125; Thuc. 1.2.5; Eur. Ion 589 ff.; Aristoph. Wasps 1076. and are able to address our city by the very names which we apply to our nearest kin;

for we alone of all the Hellenes have the right to call our city at once nurse and fatherland and mother. And yet, if men are to have good ground for pride and make just claims to leadership and frequently recall their ancestral glories, they must show that their race boasts an origin as noble as that which I have described.A challenge to Spartan pride and pretensions.

So great, then, are the gifts which were ours from the beginning and which fortune has bestowed upon us. But how many good things we have contributed to the rest of the world we could estimate to best advantage if we should recount the history of our city from the beginning and go through all her achievements in detail; for we should find that not only was she the leader in the hazards of war, but that the social order in general in which we dwell,

with which we share the rights of citizenship and through which we are able to live, is almost wholly due to her. It is, however, necessary to single out from the number of her benefactions, not those which because of their slight importance have escaped attention and been pased over in silence, but those which because of their great importance have been and still are on the lips and in the memory of all men everywhere.