History of the Peloponnesian War

empire. But we shall be admired both by present and future generations as having excited our power with great proofs, and by no means without evident and as having no further need, either of Homer to praise us, or any one else who might charm for the moment by his verses, while the truth of the facts would mar the idea formed of them; but as having compelled every sea and land to come accessible to our daring, and every where established everlasting records, whether of evil or of

good. It was for such a country then at these men, nobly resolving not to have it taken from them, fell fighting; and every one of their survivors may well be willing to suffer in its behalf.

"For this reason, indeed, it is that I have enlarged on the characteristics of the state; both to prove that the struggle is not for the same object in our case as in that of men who have none of these advantages in an equal degree; and at the same time clearly to establish by proofs [the truth of] the eulogy of those men over whom I am now speaking.

And now the chief points of it have been mentioned; for with regard to the things for which I have commended the city, it was the virtues of these men, end such as these, that adorned her with them; and few of the Greeks are there whose fame, like these men's, would appear but the just counterpoise of their deeds. Again, the closing scene of these men appears to me to supply an illustration of human worth, whether as affording us the first information respecting it, or its final confirmation.