keeping their word more faithfully than men now keep their oaths, and thinking it right to abide by their covenants as by the decrees of necessity; they exulted less in the exercise of power than they gloried in living with self-control, thinking it their duty to feel toward the weaker as they expected the stronger to feel toward themselves; and, while they regarded their home cities as their several places of abode, yet they considered Hellas to be their common fatherland.

Because they were inspired by such sentiments, and educated the young in such habits of conduct, they produced in the persons of those who fought against the Asiatic hordes men of so great valor that no one, either of the poets or of the sophists, has ever been able to speak in a manner worthy of their achievements. And I can well excuse them, for it is quite as difficult to praise those who have excelled the exploits of the rest of the world as to praise those who have done no good thing at all; for in the case of the latter the speaker has no support in deeds, and to describe the former there exist no fitting words.

For what words can match the measure of such men, who so far surpassed the members of the expedition against Troy that, whereas the latter consumed ten years beleaguering a single cityA favorite comparison. Cf. 186, Isoc. 5.111-112, Isoc. 9.65. they, in a short space of time, completely defeated the forces that had been collected from all Asia, and not only saved their own countries but liberated the whole of Hellas as well? And from what deeds or hardships or dangers would they have shrunk so as to enjoy men's praise while living—these men who were so ready to lay down their lives for the sake of the glory they would have when dead?

Methinks some god out of admiration for their valor brought about this war in order that men endowed by nature with such a spirit should not be lost in obscurity nor die without renown, but should be deemed worthy of the same honors as are given to those who have sprung from the gods and are called demi-gods; for while the gods surrendered the bodies even of their own sons to the doom of nature, yet they have made immortal the memory of their valor.

Sections 85-87 are closely paralleled in Lys. 2.23-26. Now while our forefathers and the Lacedaemonians were always emulous of each other, yet during that time their rivalry was for the noblest ends; they did not look upon each other as enemies but as competitors, nor did they court the favor of the barbarians for the enslavement of the HellenesAs was done by the Peace of Antalcidas. See 115, note.; on the contrary, they were of one mind when the common safety was in question, and their rivalry with each other was solely to see which of them should bring this about. They first displayed their valor when Darius sent his troops;

for when the Persians landed in Attica the Athenians did not wait for their allies, but, making the common war their private cause, they marched out with their own forces alone to meet an enemy who looked with contempt upon the whole of Hellas—a mere handful against thousands upon thousandsThe Athenians at Marathon were reckoned at ten thousand, the Persians at about two hundred thousand.—as if they were about to risk the lives of others, not their own;Echoed from Thuc. 1.70. the Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, no sooner heard of the war in Attica than they put all else aside and came to our rescue, having made as great haste as if it had been their own country that was being laid waste.

A proof of the swiftness and of the rivalry of both is that, according to the account, our ancestors on one and the same dayIsocrates makes greater “haste” than Hdt. 6.110. learned of the landing of the barbarians, rushed to the defense of the borders of their land, won the battle, and set up a trophy of victory over the enemy; while the Lacedaemonians in three days and as many nightsThis agrees with Hdt. 6.120. covered twelve hundred stadia in marching order: so strenuously did they both hasten, the Lacedaemonians to share in the dangers, the Athenians to engage the enemy before their helpers should arrive.

Then came the later expedition,The second campaign is described by Hdt. 7-9. which was led by Xerxes in person; he had left his royal residence, boldly taken command as general in the field, and collected about him all the hosts of Asia. What orator, however eager to overshoot the mark, has not fallen short of the truth in speaking of this king,

who rose to such a pitch of arrogance that, thinking it a small task to subjugate Hellas, and proposing to leave a memorial such as would mark a more than human power, did not stop until he had devised and compelled the execution of a plan whose fame is on the lips of all mankind—a plan by which, having bridged the Hellespont and channelled Athos, he sailed his ships across the mainland, and marched his troops across the main?A like artificiality of rhetoric to describe the presumption of Xerxes in building a bridge across the Hellespont for his troops and a canal through the promontory of Athos for his ships (Hdt. 7.22-24) seems to have been conventional. Cf. Lys. 2.29 and Aesch. Pers. 745 ff.

It was against a king who had grown so proud, who had carried through such mighty tasks, and who had made himself master of so many men, that our ancestors and the Lacedaemonians marched forth, first dividing the danger: the latter going to Thermopylae to oppose the land forces with a thousandThere were originally in all about four thousand, according to Hdt. 7.202. picked soldiers of their own, supported by a few of their allies, with the purpose of checking the Persians in the narrow pass from advancing farther; while our ancestors sailed to Artemisium with sixty triremesAn understatement of the number. Cf. Hdt. 8.1. which they had manned to oppose the whole armada of the enemy.

And they dared to do these things, not so much in contempt of their foes as in keen rivalry against each other: the Lacedaemonians envying our city its victory at Marathon, and seeking to even the score, and fearing, furthermore, lest our city should twice in succession be the instrument of saving Hellas; while our ancestors, on the other hand, desired above all to maintain the reputation they had won, and to prove to the world that in their former battle they had conquered through valor and not through fortune, and in the next place to incite the Hellenes to carry on the war with their ships, by showing that in fighting on the sea no less than on the land valor prevails over numbers.Paralleled in Plat. Menex. 240d; Lys. 2.23; Lyc. 1.108.

But though they displayed equal courage, they did not meet with similar fortunes. The Lacedaemonians were utterly destroyed. Although in spirit they were victorious, in body they were outworn; for it were sacrilege to say that they were defeated, since not one of them deigned to leave his post.This paragraph is closely paralleled in Lys. 2.31; Hyp. 6.27; and Lyc. 1.48. Our ancestors, on the other hand, met and conquered the advance squadron of the Persians and when they heard that the enemy were masters of the pass,Thermopylae. they sailed back home and adopted such measures for what remained to be done that, however many and however glorious had been their previous achievements, they outdid themselves still more in the final hazards of that war.

For when all the allies were in a state of dejection, and the Peloponnesians were fortifying the Isthmus and selfishly seeking their own safety; when the other states had submitted to the barbarians and were fighting on the Persian side, save only those which were overlooked because of their insignificance; when twelve hundred ships of war were bearing down upon them, and an innumerable armyAn army of 2,640,000, acc. to Hdt. 7.185. was on the point of invading Attica; when no light of deliverance could be glimpsed in any quarter, but, on the contrary, the Athenians had been abandoned by their allies and cheated of their every hope;

and when it lay in their power not only to escape from their present dangers but also to enjoy the signal honors which the King held out to them, since he conceived that if he could get the support of the Athenian fleet he could at once become master of the Peloponnesus also, then our ancestors scorned to accept his gifts;The attempt to bribe the Athenians was, according to Hdt. 8.136, made after the battle of Salamis. nor did they give way to anger against the Hellenes for having betrayed them and rush gladly to make terms with the barbarians;

nay, by themselves they made ready to battle for freedom, while they forgave the rest for choosing bondage. For they considered that while it was natural for the weaker states to seek their security by every means, it was not possible for those states which asserted their right to stand at the head of Hellas to avoid the perils of war; on the contrary, they believed that just as it is preferable for men who are honorable to die nobly rather than to live in disgrace, so too it is better for cities which are illustrious to be blotted out from the sight of mankind rather than to be seen in a state of bondage.

It is evident that they were of this mind; for when they were not able to marshal themselves against both the land and the sea forces at once, they took with them the entire population, abandoned the city, and sailed to the neighboring island, in order that they might encounter each force in turn.Cf. Lys. 2.33 ff. And yet how could men be shown to be braver or more devoted to Hellas than our ancestors, who, to avoid bringing slavery upon the rest of the Hellenes, endured to see their city made desolate, their land ravaged, their sanctuaries rifled, their temples burned, and all the forces of the enemy closing in upon their own country?

But in truth even this did not satisfy them; they were ready to give battle on the sea—they alone against twelve hundred ships of war. They were not, indeed, allowed to fight alone; for the Peloponnesians, put to shame by our courage, and thinking, moreover, that if the Athenians should first be destroyed, they could not themselves be saved from destruction, and that if the Athenians should succeed, their own cities would be brought into disrepute, they were constrained to share the dangers. Now the clamors that arose during the action, and the shoutings and the cheers—things which are common to all those who fight on ships—I see no reason why I should take time to describe;Unlike Gorgias, Fr. 18, and Lys. 2.37, who do go into such details.

my task is to speak of those matters which are distinctive and give claim to leadership, and which confirm the arguments which I have already advanced. In short, our city was so far superior while she stood unharmed that even after she had been laid waste she contributed more ships to the battle for the deliverance of Hellas than all the others put togetherSo Isoc. 12.50 Lys. 2.42. But according to Hdt. 8.44-48 the Athenians furnished 180, the others 198. who fought in the engagement; and no one is so prejudiced against us that he would not acknowledge that it was by winning the sea fight that we conquered in the war, and that the credit for this is due to Athens.Cf. Isoc. 12.51.

Who then should have the hegemony, when a campaign against the barbarians is in prospect? Should it not be they who distinguished themselves above all others in the former war? Should it not be they who many times bore, alone, the brunt of battle, and in the joint struggles of the Hellenes were awarded the prize of valor? Should it not be they who abandoned their own country to save the rest of Hellas, who in ancient times founded most of the Hellenic cities, and who later delivered them from the greatest disasters? Would it not be an outrage upon us, if, having taken the largest share in the evils of war, we should be adjudged worthy of a lesser share in its honors, and if, having at that time been placed in the lead in the cause of all the Hellenes, we should now be compelled to follow the lead of others?

Now up to this point I am sure that all men would acknowledge that our city has been the author of the greatest number of blessings, and that she should in fairness be entitled to the hegemony. But from this point on some take us to task, urging that after we succeeded to the sovereignty of the sea we brought many evils upon the Hellenes; and, in these speeches of theirs, they cast it in our teeth that we enslaved the Melians and destroyed the people of Scione.The Melan episode is dramatically told by Thucydides v. 84-116. Because the Melians refused to join the Delian Confederacy they were besieged and conquered by the Athenians, 416 B.C. The men of military age were put to the sword and the women and children sold into slavery. Five hundred Athenians were later settled there. Scione revolted from the Confederacy in 423 B.C. Reduced to subjection in 421 B.C., the people suffered the same fate as did the Melians later and their territory was occupied by Plataean refugees (Thuc. 4.120-130). These are blots on the record which Isocrates can at best condone. “Even the gods are not thought to be above reproach,” he says in the Isoc. 12.62-64, where he discusses frankly these sins of the Athenian democracy. Xenophon tells us that when the Athenians found themselves in like case with these conquered peoples after the disaster at Aegospotami they bitterly repented them of this injustice, Xen. Hell. 2.3.