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.