If, then, one views Athens in this light and compares her, not with any city chosen at random, but with the city of the Spartans, which most people praise moderately while someThe oligarchical party in Athens, generally, admired Spartan institutions. Among writers, Xenophon especially (see Xen. Const. Lac.) was emphatic in his praise of them. The Athenian philosophers, also, were wont to contrast the rigor and discipline of the Spartan with the slackness of the Athenian ways of life. See Isoc. 3.24 and note. extol her as though the demigods had there governed the state, then Athens, in her power, in her deeds and in her benefactions to the Hellenes, will be seen to have outdistanced Sparta more than Sparta the rest of the world.

Of the ancient struggles which they have undergone in behalf of the Hellenes, I shall speak hereafter.He does so in Isoc. 12.191 ff. Now, however, I shall begin with the time when the Lacedaemonians conquered the cities of AchaeaIn the northern Peloponnese. For the Dorian Invasion of the Peloponnese see Grote, vol.2, pp. 2 ff. Cf. Isoc. 6.16 ff. and divided their territory with the Argives and the Messenians; for it is fitting to begin discussing them at this point. Now our ancestors will be seen to have preserved without ceasing the spirit of concord towards the Hellenes and of hatred towards the barbarians which they inherited from the Trojan War and to have remained steadfast in this policy.

First they took the islands of the Cyclades,In the campaigns of the so-called “Ionian Migration.” See Isoc. 4.34 ff. about which there had been much contention during the overlordship of Minos of Crete and which finally were occupied by the Carians,See Hdt. 1.171. and, having driven out the latter, refrained from appropriating the lands of these islands for themselves, but instead settled upon them those of the Hellenes who were most lacking in means of subsistence.

And after this, they founded many great cities on both continents,Europe and Asia—north and south of the Hellespont. swept the barbarians back from the sea, and taught the Hellenes in what way they should manage their own countries and against whom they should wage war in order to make Hellas great.

The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, about the same time were so far from carrying out the same policy as our ancestors—from waging war on the barbarians and benefiting the Hellenes—that they were not even willing to refrain from aggression, but although they held an alien city and a territory not only adequate but greater than any other city of Hellas possessed, they were not satisfied with what they had;

on the contrary, having learned from the actual course of events that while according to law states and territories are deemed to belong to those who have duly and lawfully acquired them, in fact, however, they fall into the hands of those who are most practised in the art of warfare and are able to conquer their enemies in battle—thinking upon these things, they neglected agriculture and the arts and everything else and did not cease laying siege to the cities in the Peloponnesus one by one and doing violence to them until they overthrew them all with the exception of Argos.For the Spartan Conquest of the Peloponnese see Grote, , pp. 418 ff.

And so it resulted from the policy which we pursued that Hellas waxed great, Europe became stronger than Asia, and, furthermore, the Hellenes who were in straitened circumstances received cities and lands, while the barbarians who were wont to be insolent were expelled from their own territory and humbled in their pride; whereas the results of the Spartan policy were that their city alone became strong, dominated all the cities in the Peloponnesus, inspired fear in the other states, and was courted by them for her favor.

In justice, however, we should praise the city which has been the author of many blessings to the rest of the world but should reprehend the state which is ever striving to effect its own advantage; and we should cultivate the friendship of those who do by others just as they do by themselves, but should abhor and shun those who feel the utmost degree of self-love, while governing their state in a spirit inimical and hostile to the world at large. Such was the beginning made by each of these two states.