Panegyricus

These things may well rouse our indignation and make us look to the means by which we shall take vengeance for the past and set the future right. For verily it is shameful for us, who in our private life think the barbarians are fit only to be used as household slaves, to permit by our public policy so many of our allies to be enslaved by them; and it is disgraceful for us, when our fathers who engaged in the Trojan expedition because of the rape of one woman, all shared so deeply in the indignation of the wronged that they did not stop waging war until they had laid in ruins the city of him who had dared to commit the crime,

—it is disgraceful for us, I say, now that all Hellas is being continually outraged, to take not a single step to wreak a common vengeance, although we have it in our power to accomplish deeds as lofty as our dreams. For this war is the only war which is better than peace; it will be more like a sacred mission than a military expedition; and it will profit equally both those who crave the quiet life and those who are eager for war; for it will enable the former to reap the fruits of their own possessions in security and the latter to win great wealth from the possessions of our foes.

You will find, if you weigh the matter carefully, that this undertaking is most desirable for us from many points of view. For against whom, pray, ought men to wage war who crave no aggrandizement, but look to the claims of justice alone? Is it not against those who in the past have injured Hellas, and are now plotting against her, and have always been so disposed towards us?

And against whom should we expect men to direct their envy who, while not wholly lacking in courage, yet curb this feeling with prudence? Is it not against those who have compassed powers that are too great for man, and yet are less deserving than those who are unfortunate among us? And against whom should those take the field who both desire to serve their gods and are at the same time intent on their own advantage? Is it not against those who are both their natural enemies and their hereditary foes, who have acquired the greatest possessions and are yet, of all men, the least able to defend them? Do not the Persians, then, fulfill all these conditions?

Furthermore, we shall not even trouble the several states by levying soldiers from them—a practice which now in our warfare against each other they find most burdensome. For it is my belief that those who will be inclined to remain at home will be far fewer than those who will be eager to join this army. For who, be he young or old, is so indolent that he will not desire to have a part in this expedition—an expedition led by the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, gathered together in the cause of the liberty of our allies, dispatched by all Greece, and faring forth to wreak vengeance on the barbarians?

And how great must we think will be the name and the fame and the glory which they will enjoy during their lives, or, if they die in battle, will leave behind them—they who will have won the meed of honor in such an enterprise? For if those who made war against an Alexander[*](Another name for Paris.) and took a single city were accounted worthy of such praise, what encomiums should we expect these men to win who have conquered the whole of Asia? For who that is skilled to sing or trained to speak will not labor and study in his desire to leave behind a memorial both of his own genius and of their valor, for all time to come?

I am not at the present moment of the same mind as I was at the beginning of my speech. For then I thought that I should be able to speak in a manner worthy of my theme; now, however, I have not risen to its grandeur, and many of the thoughts which I had in mind to utter have escaped me. Therefore you must come to my aid and try to picture to yourselves what vast prosperity we should attain if we should turn the war which now involves ourselves against the peoples of the continent, and bring the prosperity of Asia across to Europe.

And you must not depart to your homes as men who have merely listened to an oration; nay, those among you who are men of action must exhort one another to try to reconcile our city with Lacedaemon; and those among you who make claims to eloquence must stop composing orations on “deposits,”[*](The translation is influenced by Professor Bonner's note on th\n parakataqh/khn in Classical Philology, xv. p. 385. He argues convincingly that th\n parakataqh/khn is not a particular deposit but that the article is “generic, not specific.” Deposits entrusted by one man with another were rather common transactions before the days of banks and caused frequent lawsuits. Hence “the deposit theme” became a hackneyed exercise in the schools of rhetoric. It is, in the opinion of Isocrates, too commonplace and trivial for serious oratory.) or on the other trivial themes[*](“Humble bees and salt” are mentioned in Isoc. 10.12 as subjects on which speakers show off their powers to the neglect of worthy themes. In general, he seems here to be thinking of such rhetorical tours de force as Lucian caricatures in his Encomium on the House Fly.) which now engage your efforts, and center your rivalry on this subject and study how you may surpass me in speaking on the same question,

bearing ever in mind that it does not become men who promise great things to waste their time on little things,[*](This very complaint he makes of his rival sophists. See Isoc. 13.1, 10.) nor yet to make the kind of speeches which will improve no whit the lives of those whom they convince, but rather the kind which, if carried out in action, will both deliver the authors themselves from their present distress[*](Not too urbanely he dwells upon the poverty of his rivals. Cf. Isoc. 13.4, 7.) and win for them the credit of bringing to pass great blessings for the rest of the world.[*](The kind of discourse to which Isocrates himself devoted his serious efforts. See Isoc. 12.11 and General Introd. p. xxiv.)