Concerning the Team of Horses

As to his later services, it would be an arduous task to enumerate them one by one—all the ships of war that he subsequently captured, or the battles that he won, or the cities he took by storm or by persuasion made your friends. But although innumerable dangers beset the city at that time, never did the enemy erect a trophy of victory over you while my father was your leader.

I am aware that I am omitting many of my father's exploits as your general; I have not recounted them in detail because nearly all of you recall the facts. But my father's private life they revile with excessive indecency and audacity, and they are not ashamed, now that he is dead, to use a license of speech concerning him which they would have feared to employ while he lived.

Nay, they have come to such a pitch of folly that they think they will win repute with both you and with the world at large if they indulge in the wildest possible abuse of him; as if all did not know that it is in the power of the vilest of men to abuse with insulting words, not only the best of men, but even the gods.

Perhaps it is foolish for me to take to heart all that has been said; nevertheless, I desire very much to recount to you my father's private pursuits, going back a little to make mention of his ancestors, that you may know that from early times our standing and services have been the greatest and most honorable among the citizens of Athens.

My father on the male side belonged to the Eupatrids,[*](The Eupatrids (sons of noble sires) were the nobles, or patricians, in Athens of the early time.) whose noble birth is apparent from the very name. On the female side he was of the Alcmeonidae,[*](Descendants of Alcmeon, one of the greatest families in early Athens, expelled from the city in 595 B.C.) who left behind a glorious memorial of their wealth; for Alcmeon[*](Son of Megacles.) was the first Athenian to win at Olympia with a team of horses, and the goodwill which they had toward the people they displayed in the time of the tyrants. For they were kinsmen of Pisistratus[*](Pisistratus was a tyrant of Athens in the sixth century B.C.) and before he came to power were closest to him of all the citizens, but they refused to share his tyranny; on the contrary, they preferred exile rather than to see their fellow-citizens enslaved.

And during the forty years[*](Roughly speaking the period of the rule of Pisistratus and his sons, 560-510 B.C.) of civic discord the Alcmeonidae were hated so much more bitterly than all other Athenians by the tyrants that whenever the tyrants had the upper hand they not only razed their dwellings, but even dug up their tombs[*](Cf. Hdt. 5.71.); and so completely were the Alcmeonidae trusted by their fellow-exiles that they continued during all that time to be leaders of the people. At last, Alcibiades and Cleisthenes[*](Cleisthenes was the reformer of the Athenian constitution and founder of the democracy.)—the former my great-grandfather on my father's side, the latter my father's maternal great-grandfather—assuming the leadership of those in exile, restored the people to their country, and drove out the tyrants.

And they established that democratic form of government which so effectively trained the citizens in bravery that single-handed they conquered in battle[*](Marathon, 490 B.C.) the barbarians who had attacked all Greece and they won so great renown for justice that the Greeks voluntarily put in their hands the dominion of the sea; and they made Athens so great in her power and her other resources that those who allege that she is the capital of Greece[*](Cf. Isoc. 15.299.) and habitually apply to her similar exaggerated expressions appear to be speaking the truth.

Now this friendship with the people, which was, as I have shown, so ancient, genuine, and based upon services of the greatest importance, my father inherited from his ancestors. My father himself was left an orphan (for his father[*](Cleinias.) died in battle at Coronea[*](A town in Boeotia where the Athenians were defeated by the Boeotians in 466 B.C.)) and became the ward of Pericles, whom all would acknowledge to have been the most moderate, the most just, and the wisest of the citizens. For I count this also among his blessings that, being of such origin, he was fostered, reared, and educated under the guardianship of a man of such character.

When he was admitted to citizenship, he showed himself not inferior to those whom I have mentioned, nor did he think it fitting that he should lead a life of ease, pluming himself upon the brave deeds of his ancestors; on the contrary, from the beginning he was so fired with ambition that he thought that even their great deeds should be held in remembrance through his own. And first of all, when Phormio[*](A famous Athenian general.) led a thousand of the flower of Athenian soldiers to Thrace,[*](Expedition to recover the city of Potidaea in 439 B.C. Thucydides (Thuc. 1.64.2) speaks of 1600 hoplites. Cf. Plat. Sym. 220 for the award of valor given to Alcibiades.) my father served with this expedition, and so distinguished himself in the perilous actions of the campaign that he was crowned and received a full suit of armour from his general.

Really what is required of the man who is thought worthy of the highest praise? Should he not, when serving with the bravest of the citizens, be thought worthy of the prize of valor, and when leading an army against the best of the Greeks in all the battles show his superiority to them? My father, then, in his youth did win that prize of valor and in later life did achieve the latter.