Panegyricus

Many are the services which we have rendered to the state of the Lacedaemonians, but it has suited my purpose to speak of this one only; for, starting with the advantage afforded by our succor of them, the descendants of Heracles—the progenitors of those who now reign in Lacedaemon—returned to the Peloponnese, took possession of Argos, Lacedaemon, and Messene, settled Sparta, and were established as the founders of all the blessings which the Lacedaemonians now enjoy.

These benefits they should have held in grateful remembrance, and should never have invaded this land from which they set out and acquired so great prosperity, nor have placed in peril the city which had imperilled herself for the sons of Heracles, nor, while bestowing the kingship upon his posterity,[*](Aristodemus, the great-great-grandson of Heracles, had twin sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, who established the double line from which Sparta drew her two hereditary kings.) have yet thought it right that the city which was the means of the deliverance of their race should be enslaved to their power.

But if we have to leave out of account considerations of gratitude and fairness, and, returning to the main question, state the point which is most essential, assuredly it is not ancestral custom for immigrants to set themselves over the sons of the soil, or the recipients of benefits over their benefactors, or refugees over those who gave them asylum.

But I can make the matter clear in yet briefer terms. Of all the Hellenic states, excepting our own, Argos and Thebes and Lacedaemon were at that time the greatest, as they still are to this day. And yet our ancestors were manifestly so superior to them all that on behalf of the defeated Argives they dictated terms to the Thebans at the moment of their greatest pride,

and on behalf of the sons of Heracles they conquered the Argives and the rest of the Peloponnesians in battle, and delivered the founders and leaders of Lacedaemon out of all danger from Eurystheus. Therefore, as to what state was the first power in Hellas, I do not see how anyone could produce more convincing evidence.

But it seems to me fitting that I should speak also of the city's achievements against the barbarians, the more so since the subject which I have undertaken is the question of who should take the lead against them. Now if I were to go through the list of all our wars, I should speak at undue length; therefore I shall confine myself to the most important, endeavoring to deal with this topic also in the same manner in which I have just dealt with the other.

Let us single out, then, the races which have the strongest instinct for domination and the greatest power of aggression—the Scythians and the Thracians and the Persians; it so happens that these have all had hostile designs upon us and that against all these our city has fought decisive wars. And yet what ground will be left for our opponents if it be shown that those among the Hellenes who are powerless to obtain their rights see fit to appeal to us for help, and that those among the barbarians who purpose to enslave the Hellenes make us the first object of their attacks?

Now, while the most celebrated of our wars was the one against the Persians, yet certainly our deeds of old offer evidence no less strong for those who dispute over ancestral rights. For while Hellas was still insignificant, our territory was invaded by the Thracians, led by Eumolpus, son of Poseidon, and by the Scythians, led by the Amazons,[*](For these legendary wars against the Scythians, Amazons, and Thracians see Grote, Hist. i. pp. 201 ff. These stood out in the Athenian mind as their first great struggle against the barbarians, and generally found a place beside the Persian Wars in pictures of their glorious past. Cf. Isoc. 6.42; Isoc. 7.75; Isoc. 12.193; Lys. 2.4 ff.; Plat. Menex. 239b; Xen. Mem. 3.5.9.) the daughters of Ares—not at the same time, but during the period when both races were trying to extend their dominion over Europe; for though they hated the whole Hellenic race, they raised complaints[*](These complaints are stated in Isoc. 12.193.) against us in particular, thinking that in this way they would wage war against one state only, but would at the same time impose their power on all the states of Hellas.

Of a truth they were not successful; nay, in this conflict against our forefathers alone they were as utterly overwhelmed as if they had fought the whole world. How great were the disasters which befell them is evident; for the tradition respecting them would not have persisted for so long a time if what was then done had not been without parallel.

At any rate, we are told regarding the Amazons that of all who came not one returned again, while those who had remained at home were expelled from power because of the disaster here; and we are told regarding the Thracians that, whereas at one time they dwelt beside us on our very borders, they withdrew so far from us in consequence of that expedition that in the spaces left between their land and ours many nations, races of every kind, and great cities have been established.

Noble indeed are these achievements—yea, and appropriate to those who dispute over the hegemony. But of the same breed as those which have been mentioned, and of such a kind as would naturally be expected of men descended from such ancestors, are the deeds of those who fought against Darius and Xerxes.[*](At the decisive battles of Marathon, 490 B.C., and Salamis, 480 B.C.) For when that greatest of all wars broke out and a multitude of dangers presented themselves at one and the same time, when our enemies regarded themselves as irresistible because of their numbers and our allies thought themselves endowed with a courage which could not be excelled, we outdid them both,

surpassing each in the way appropriate to each;[*](This passage is closely imitated by Lyc. 1.70, and by Aristeides, Isoc. 12.217.) and having proved our superiority in meeting all dangers, we were straightway awarded the meed of valor,[*](By general acknowledgement. See Isoc. 4.99 and Isoc. 7.75, Isoc. 8.76.) and we obtained, not long after, the sovereignty of the sea[*](Athens obtained the supremacy as the head of the Confederacy of Delos 477 B.C. See Isoc. 7.17; Isoc. 12.67; Hdt. 9.106; Thuc. 1.95; Xen. Hell. 6.5.34.) by the willing grant of the Hellenes at large and without protest from those who now seek to wrest it from our hands.

And let no one think that I ignore the fact that during these critical times the Lacedaemonians also placed the Hellenes under obligations for many services; nay, for this reason I am able the more to extol our city because, in competition with such rivals, she so far surpassed them. But I desire to speak a little more at length about these two states, and not to hasten too quickly by them, in order that we may have before us reminders both of the courage of our ancestors and of their hatred against the barbarians.

And yet I have not failed to appreciate the fact that it is difficult to come forward last and speak upon a subject which has long been appropriated, and upon which the very ablest speakers among our citizens have many times addressed you at the public funerals;[*](The custom of delivering funeral orations for those who fell in battle seems to have originated in the Persian Wars. Of such orations the following are the most celebrated: the oration of Pericles in honor of those who died in the first year of the Peloponnesian War (Thuc. 2.35-46); the Epitaphios of Gorgias, published in Athens some time after 347 B.C., represented by fragments only; the Epitaphios attributed to Lysias on those who fell in the Corinthian War, 394 B.C.; the Menexenus of Plato; the Epitaphios attributed to Demosthenes on those who were killed at Chaeronea; that of Hypereides on the heroes of the Lamian War.) for, naturally, the most important topics have already been exhausted, while only unimportant topics have been left for later speakers. Nevertheless, since they are apposite to the matter in hand, I must not shirk the duty of taking up the points which remain and of recalling them to your memory.

[*](Dion. Hal. Isoc. 5, gives a digest of 75-81 and remarks with unction that no one can read it without being stirred to patriotism and devoted citizenship. However, later (14) he quotes extensively from the same division of the speech to illustrate the author's excessive artifices of style.) Now the men who are responsible for our greatest blessings and deserve our highest praise are, I conceive, those who risked their bodies in defense of Hellas; and yet we cannot in justice fail to recall also those who lived before this war and were the ruling power in each of the two states; for they it was who, in good time, trained the coming generation and turned the masses of the people toward virtue, and made of them stern foemen of the barbarians.

For they did not slight the commonwealth, nor seek to profit by it as their own possession, nor yet neglect it as the concern of others; but were as careful of the public revenues as of their private property, yet abstained from them as men ought from that to which they have no right.[*](This artificial paragraph is closely paralleled in Isoc. 7.24 and in Isoc. 3.21.) Nor did they estimate well-being by the standard of money, but in their regard that man seemed to have laid up the securest fortune and the noblest who so ordered his life that he should win the highest repute for himself and leave to his children the greatest name;

neither did they vie with one another in temerity, nor did they cultivate recklessness in themselves, but thought it a more dreadful thing to be charged with dishonor by their countrymen than to die honorably for their country; and they blushed more for the sins of the commonwealth than men do nowadays for their own.

The reason for this was that they gave heed to the laws to see that they should be exact and good—not so much the laws about private contracts as those which have to do with men's daily habits of life; for they understood that for good and true men there would be no need of many written laws,[*](Cf. Isoc. 7.41. This part of the Panegyricus has much in common with the pictures of the old democracy in Athens drawn in the Areopagiticus and the Panathenaicus.) but that if they started with a few principles of agreement they would readily be of one mind as to both private and public affairs.

So public-spirited were they that even in their party struggles they opposed one another, not to see which faction should destroy the other and rule over the remnant, but which should outstrip the other in doing something good for the state; and they organized their political clubs, not for personal advantage, but for the benefit of the people.[*](Political parties and clubs of that day are here no doubt idealized to point the contrast to the selfish intrigues of the present. Cf. Isoc. 4.168 and Thucydides' picture of the evils of faction, Thuc. 3.82. These clubs, whatever they may have been in the Golden Age, were later sworn enemies of popular government and the centers of oligarchical conspiracies. See Thuc. 8.54; and Aristot. Ath. Pol. 34.)

In the same spirit they governed their relations with other states. They treated the Hellenes with consideration and not with insolence, regarding it as their duty to command them in the field but not to tyrannize over them, desiring rather to be addressed as leaders than as masters, and rather to be greeted as saviors than reviled as destroyers; they won the Hellenic cities to themselves by doing kindness instead of subverting them by force,