Panathenaicus
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When I was younger, I elected not to write the kind of discourse which deals with myths
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nor that which abounds in marvels and fictions,
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although the majority of people are more delighted with this literature than with that which is devoted to their welfare and safety;
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nor did I choose the kind which recounts the ancient deeds and wars of the Hellenes, although I am aware that this is deservedly praised,
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nor, again, that which gives the impression of having been composed in a plain and simple manner and is lacking in all the refinements of style,
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which those who are clever at conducting law-suits urge our young men tocultivate,
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especially if they wish to have the advantage over their adversaries.
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No, I left all these to others and devoted my own efforts to giving advice on the true interests of Athens and of the rest of the Hellenes,
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writing in a style rich in many telling points, in contrasted and balanced phrases not a few,
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and in the other figures of speech which give brilliance to oratory
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and compel the approbation and applause of the audience.
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Now, however, I have completely given up these devices of rhetoric.
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For I do not think it is becoming to the ninety-four years which I have lived nor, in general, to men whose hair has at length turned to grey
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to continue to speak in this fashion, but rather in the manner which every man, should he so desire, would hope to command, although no man can easily attain it without hard work and close application.
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I have said this at the beginning in order that if the discourse which is now about to be presented to the public should appear to some to be more feeble
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than those which have been published in former years, they may not compare it in the matter of rhetorical variety and finish to my former compositions but may judge it in relation to the subject matter which I have deemed appropriate to the present occasion.
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I intend to discuss the achievements of
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Athens
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and the virtues of our ancestors, although I shall not begin with them but with a statement of my personal experience, since it is more urgent, I think, to begin with this. For notwithstanding that I strive to live in a manner above reproach and without offence to others, I am continually being misrepresented by obscure and worthless sophists and being judged by the general public, not by what I really am, but by what they hear from others.
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I wish, therefore, to preface my discussion with a word about myself and about those who have this attitude towards me, in order that, if only it lies within my power to do so, I may put an end to the abuse of my calumniators and give to the public a clear understanding of the work to which I am devoted. For if I succeed in setting forth a true picture of this in my discourse, I hope not only that I myself may pass the rest of my days free from annoyance but that my present audience will give better attention to the discourse which is about to be delivered.
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I am not going to hesitate to tell you frankly of the confusion which now comes into my thoughts, of the strangeness of my feelings on the present occasion, and of my perplexity as to whether I am doing anything to the purpose. For I have had my share of the greatest goods of life—the things which all men would pray the gods to have as their portion:
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first of all, I have enjoyed health both of body and of soul, not in common degree, but in equal measure with those who have been most blessed in these respects;
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secondly, I have been in comfortable circumstances, so that I have not lacked for any of the moderate satisfactions nor for those that a sensible man would desire;
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and, lastly, I have been ranked, not among those who are despised or ignored, but among those whom the most cultivated of the Hellenes will recall and talk about as men of consequence and worth. And yet, although I have been blessed with all these gifts, some in surpassing, others in sufficient measure, I am not content to live on these terms; on the contrary, my old age is so morose and captious and discontented that I have oftentimes before this found fault with my nature,
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which no other man has contemned, and have deplored my fortune, although I have had no complaint against it other than that the philosophy which I have chosen to pursue has been the object of unfortunate and unscrupulous attacks.
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As to my nature, however, I realized that it was not robust and vigorous enough for public affairs and that it was not adequate nor altogether suited to public discourse, and that, furthermore, although it was better able to form a correct judgement of the truth of any matter than are those who claim to have exact knowledge,
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yet for expounding the truth before an assemblage of many people it was, if I may say so, the least competent in all the world.
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For I was born more lacking in the two things which have the greatest power in Athens—a strong voice and ready assurance
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—than, I dare say, any of my fellow-citizens. And those who are not endowed with these are condemned to go about in greater obscurity so far as public recognition is concerned than those who owe money to the state;
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for the latter have still the hope of paying off the fine assessed against them, whereas the former can never change their nature.
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And yet I did not permit these disabilities to dishearten me nor did I allow myself to sink into obscurity or utter oblivion, but since I was barred from public life I took refuge in study and work and writing down my thoughts, choosing as my field, not petty matters nor private contracts, nor the things about which the other orators prate, but the affairs of
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Hellas
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and of kings and of states.
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Wherefore I thought that I was entitled to more honor than the speakers who come before you on the platform in proportion as my discourses were on greater and nobler themes than theirs. But nothing of the sort has come to pass.
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And yet all men know that the majority of the orators have the audacity to harangue the people, not for the good of the state, but for what they themselves expect to gain,
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while I and mine not only abstain more than all others from the public funds but expend more than we can afford from our private means on the needs of the commonwealth;
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and they know,
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furthermore, that these orators are either wrangling among themselves
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in the assemblies over deposits of money
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or insulting our allies
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or blackmailing
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whosoever of the rest of the world chances to be the object of their attacks, while I, for my part, have led the way in discourses which exhort the Hellenes to concord among themselves and war against the barbarians
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and which urge that we all unite in colonizing a country so vast and so vulnerable that those who have heard the truth about it assert with one accord that if we are sensible and cease from our frenzy against each other we can quickly gain possession of it without effort and without risk and that this territory will easily accommodate all the people among us who are in want of the necessities of life.
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And these are enterprises than which, should all the world unite in the search, none could be found more honorable or more important or more advantageous to us all.
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But in spite of the fact that myself and these orators are so far apart in our ways of thinking and that I have chosen a field so much more worthy, the majority of people estimate us, not in accordance with our merits, but in a confused and altogether irrational manner. For they find fault with the character of the popular orators and yet put them at the head of affairs and invest them with power over the whole state; and, again, they praise my discourses and yet are envious of me personally for no other reason than because of these very discourses which they receive with favor. So unfortunately do I fare at their hands.
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But why wonder at those who are by nature envious of all superior excellence, when certain even of those who regard themselves as superior and who seek to emulate me and imitate my work are more hostile to me than is the general public? And yet where in the world could you find men more reprehensible—for I shall speak my mind even at the risk of appearing to some to discourse with more vehemence and rancor than is becoming to my age—where, I say, could you find men more reprehensible than these, who are not able to put before their students even a fraction of what I have set forth in my teaching but use my discourses as models and make their living from so doing, and yet are so far from being grateful to me on this account that they are not even willing to let me alone but are always saying disparaging things about me?
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Nevertheless, as long as they confined themselves to abusing my discourses, reading them in the worst possible manner side by side with their own, dividing them at the wrong places, mutilating them, and in every way spoiling their effect, I paid no heed to the reports which were brought to me, but possessed myself in patience. However, a short time before the Great Panathenaia,
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they stirred me to great indignation.
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For some of my friends met me and related to me how, as they were sitting together in the Lyceum,
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three or four of the sophists of no repute— men who claim to know everything and are prompt to show their presence everywhere—were discussing the poets, especially the poetry of Hesiod and Homer, saying nothing original about them, but merely chanting their verses and repeating from memory the cleverest things which certain others had said about them in the past.
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It seems that the bystanders applauded their performance, whereupon one of these sophists, the boldest among them, attempted to stir up prejudice against me, saying that I hold all such things in contempt and that I would do away with all the learning and the teaching of others, and that I assert that all men talk mere drivel except those who partake of my instruction. And these aspersions, according to my friends, were effective in turning a number of those present against me.
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Now I could not possibly convey to you how troubled and disturbed I was on hearing that some accepted these statements as true. For I thought that it was so well known that I was waging war against the false pretenders to wisdom and that I had spoken so moderately, nay so modestly, about my own powers that no one could be credited for a moment who asserted that I myself resorted to such pretensions.
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But in truth it was with good reason that I deplored at the beginning of my speech the misfortune which has attended me all my life in this respect. For this is the cause of the false reports which are spread about me, of the calumny and prejudice which I suffer, and of my failure to attain the reputation which I deserve—either that which should be mine by common consent or that in which I am held by certain of my disciples who have known me through and through.
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However, this cannot now be changed and I must needs put up with what has already come to pass. Many things come to my mind, but I am at a loss just what to do. Should I turn upon my enemies and denounce those who are accustomed always to speak falsely of me and do not scruple to say things which are repugnant to my nature? But if I showed that I took them seriously and wasted many words on men whom no one conceives to be worthy of notice I should justly be regarded as a simpleton.
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Should I, then, ignore these sophists and defend myself against those of the lay public who are prejudiced against me, attempting to convince them that it is neither just nor fitting for them to feel towards me as they do? But who would not impute great folly to me, if, in dealing with men who are hostile to me for no other reason than that I appear to have discoursed cleverly on certain subjects, I thought that by speaking just as I have spoken in the past I should stop them from taking offence at what I say and should not instead add to their annoyance, especially if it should appear that even now at this advanced age I have not ceased from “speaking rubbish”?
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But neither would anyone, I am sure, advise me to neglect this subject and, breaking off in the midst of it, to go on and finish the discourse which I elected to write in my desire to prove that our city had been the cause of more blessings to the Hellenes than the city of the Lacedaemonians. For if I should now proceed to do this without bringing what I have written to any conclusion and without joining the beginning of what is to be said to the end of what has been spoken, I should be thought to be no better than those who speak in a random, slovenly, and scattering manner whatever comes into their heads to say. And this I must guard against.
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The best course, therefore, that I can take under all these conditions is to set before you what I think about the last attempts
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to arouse prejudice against me and then proceed to speak on the subject which I had in mind from the first. For I think that if I succeed by my writing in bringing out and making clear what my views are about education and about the poets, I shall stop my enemies from fabricating false charges and speaking utterly at random.
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Now in fact, so far from scorning the education which was handed down by our ancestors, I even commend that which has been set up in our own day—I mean geometry, astronomy, and the so-called eristic dialogues,
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which our young men delight in more than they should, although among the older men not one would not declare them insufferable.
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Nevertheless, I urge those who are inclined towards these disciplines to work hard and apply themselves to all of them, saying that even if this learning can accomplish no other good, at any rate it keeps the young out of many other things which are harmful. Nay, I hold that for those who are at this age no more helpful or fitting occupation can be found than the pursuit of these studies;
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but for those who are older and for those who have been admitted to man’s estate I assert that these disciplines are no longer suitable. For I observe that some of those who have become so thoroughly versed in these studies as to instruct others in them fail to use opportunely the knowledge which they possess, while in the other activities of life they are less cultivated
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than their students—I hesitate to say less cultivated than their servants.
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I have the same fault to find also with those who are skilled in oratory and those who are distinguished for their writings and in general with all who have superior attainments in the arts, in the sciences, and in specialized skill. For I know that the majority even of these men have not set their own house in order, that they are insupportable in their private intercourse, that they belittle the opinions of their fellow citizens, and that they are given over to many other grave offences. So that I do not think that even these may be said to partake of the state of culture of which I am speaking.
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Whom, then, do I call educated, since I exclude the arts and sciences and specialties? First, those who manage well the circumstances which they encounter day by day, and who possess a judgement which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise and rarely misses the expedient course of action;
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next, those who are decent and honorable in their intercourse with all with whom they associate, tolerating easily and good-naturedly what is unpleasant or offensive in others and being themselves as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as it is possible to be; furthermore, those who hold their pleasures always under control
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and are not unduly overcome by their misfortunes,
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bearing up under them bravely and in a manner worthy of our common nature;
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finally, and most important of all, those who are not spoiled by successes and do not desert their true selves and become arrogant,
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but hold their ground steadfastly as intelligent men, not rejoicing in the good things which have come to them through chance rather than in those which through their own nature and intelligence are theirs from their birth. Those who have a character which is in accord, not with one of these things, but with all of them—these, I contend, are wise and complete men, possessed of all the virtues.
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These then are the views which I hold regarding educated men. As to the poetry of Homer and Hesiod and the rest, I would fain speak—for I think that I could silence those who chant their verses and prate about these poets in the Lyceum—but I perceive that I am being carried beyond the due limits which have been assigned to an introduction;
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and it behoves a man of taste not to indulge his resourcefulness, when he has more to say on a given subject than the other speakers, but to preserve always the element of timeliness no matter on what subject he may have occasion to speak—a principle which I must observe. Therefore I shall speak on the poets at another time
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provided that my age does not first carry me off and that I do not have something to say on subjects more important than this.
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I shall now proceed to discourse upon the benefactions of
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to the Hellenes, not that I have not sung the praises of our city more than all others put together who have written in poetry or prose.
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I shall not speak, however, as on former occasions; for then I celebrated Athens incidentally to other matters, whereas now Athens herself shall be my theme.
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But I do not fail to appreciate how great an undertaking this is for me at my time of life; on the contrary, I know full well, and have often said,
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that while it is easy to magnify little things by means of discourse, it is difficult to find terms of praise to match deeds of surpassing magnitude and excellence.
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Nevertheless, I may not desist on that account from my task, but must carry it through to the end, if indeed I am enabled to live to do so, especially since many considerations impel me to write upon this theme myself: first, is the fact that some are in the habit of recklessly denouncing our city; second, that while some have praised her gracefully, they have lacked appreciation of their theme and treated it inadequately;
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furthermore, that others have not scrupled rather to glorify her, not in human terms, but so extravagantly as to arouse the hostility of many against them; and, lastly, there is the fact of my present age, which is such as to deter others from such an undertaking. For I am hopeful that if I succeed I shall obtain a greater reputation than that which I now have, whereas if it turns out that I speak indifferently well, my hearers will make generous allowance for my years.
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I have now finished what I wished to say by way of prelude
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about myself and others, like a chorus, as it were, before the contest. But I think that those who wish to be exact and just in praising any given state ought not to confine themselves alone to the state which they single out, but even as we examine purple and gold and test them by placing them side by side with articles of similar appearance and of the same estimated value,
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so also in the case of states one should compare, not those which are small with those which are great, nor those which are always subject to others with those which are wont to dominate others, nor those which stand in need of succor with those which are able to give it, but rather those which have similar powers, and have engaged in the same deeds and enjoyed a like freedom of action. For thus one may best arrive at the truth.
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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 some
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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
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more than
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the rest of the world.
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Of the ancient struggles which they have undergone in behalf of the Hellenes, I shall speak hereafter.
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Now, however, I shall begin with the time when the Lacedaemonians conquered the cities of
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Achaea
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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.
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First they took the islands of the
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about which there had been much contention during the overlordship of Minos of
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and which finally were occupied by the Carians,
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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.
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And after this, they founded many great cities on both continents,
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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
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great.
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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;
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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
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one by one and doing violence to them until they overthrew them all with the exception of
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Argos
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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.
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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.
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But at a later time, when the Persian War took place
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(Xerxes, who was then king, having gathered together a fleet of thirteen hundred triremes and a land force numbering five millions in all, including seven hundred thousand fighting men, and led this vast force
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against the Hellenes),
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the Spartans, although they were masters of the
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, contributed to the sea-fight which determined the issue of the whole war only ten triremes, whereas our ancestors, although they were homeless, having abandoned Athens
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because the city had not been fortified with walls at that time, furnished not only a greater number of ships, but ships with a greater fighting force, than all the rest combined who fought together in that battle.
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Again, the Lacedaemonians contributed to this battle the leadership of Eurybiades, who, had he carried into effect what he intended to do, could have been prevented by nothing in the world from bringing destruction upon the Hellenes, whereas the Athenians furnished Themistocles, who, by the common assent of all, was credited with being responsible for the victorious outcome of that battle as well as for all the other successes which were achieved during that time.
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And the greatest proof of this is that those who then fought together took the hegemony away from the Lacedaemonians and conferred it upon our ancestors.
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And yet what more competent or trustworthy judges could one find of what then took place than those who had a part in those very struggles? And what benefaction could one mention greater than that which was able to save all
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?
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Now after these events it came about that each of these cities in turn gained the empire of the sea
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—a power such that whichever state possesses it holds in subjection most of the states of
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As to their use of this power in general, I commend neither Athens nor
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; for one might find many faults with both. Nevertheless, in this supervision
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the Athenians surpassed the Lacedaemonians no less than in the deeds which I have just mentioned.
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For our fathers tried to persuade their allies to establish the very same polity in their cities as they themselves had continually cherished;
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and it is a sign of good will and friendship when any people urge it upon others to use those institutions which they conceive to be beneficial to themselves. The Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, set up in their subject states a polity which resembled neither that which obtained among themselves nor those which have existed anywhere else in the world; nay, they vested in ten men
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alone the government of each of the states—men of such a character that were one to attempt to denounce them for three or four days without pause he would appear to have covered not a fraction of the wrongs which have been perpetrated by them.
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To attempt to review these wrongs in detail were foolish; they are so many and so grave. Were I a younger man, I might perhaps have found means to characterize all of their crimes in a few words which would have stirred in my hearers an indignation commensurate with the gravity of the things which these men have done; but as it is, no such words occur to me other than those which are on the lips of all men, namely, that they so far outdid all those who lived before their time in lawlessness and greed that they not only ruined themselves and their friends and their own countries but also brought the Lacedaemonians into evil repute with their allies and plunged them into misfortunes so many and so grave as no one could have dreamed would ever be visited upon them.
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You can see at once from this instance best of all how much milder and more moderate we were in our supervision over the affairs of the Hellenes, but you can see it also from what I shall now say. The Spartans remained at the head of
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hardly ten years,
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while we held the hegemony without interruption for sixty-five years.
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And yet it is known to all that states which come under the supremacy of others remain loyal for the longest time to those under which they suffer the least degree of oppression.
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Now both Athens and
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incurred the hatred of their subjects and were plunged into war and confusion, but in these circumstances it will be found that our city, although attacked by all the Hellenes and by the barbarians as well, was able to hold out against them for ten years,
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while the Lacedaemonians, though still the leading power by land, after waging war against the Thebans alone and being defeated in a single battle,
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were stripped of all the possessions which they had held and involved in misfortunes and calamities which were very similar to these which overtook ourselves.
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More than that, our city recovered her power in less years than it took to overthrow it, while the Spartans after their defeat at Leuctra have not been able even in a period many times as long to regain the position from which they fell, but are even now
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no better off than they were then.
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Again, I must set forth how these two cities demeaned themselves toward the barbarians;
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for this still remains to be done. In the time of our supremacy, the barbarians were prevented from marching with an army beyond the
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Halys river
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and from sailing with their ships of war this side of Phaselis,
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but under the hegemony of the Lacedaemonians not only did they gain the freedom to march and sail wherever they pleased, but they even became masters over many Hellenic states.
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Well then, does not the city which made the nobler and prouder covenants with the Persian king, which brought to pass the most and the greatest injuries to the barbarians and benefits to the Hellenes, which, furthermore, seized from her foes the sea-coast of Asia and much other territory besides and appropriated it to her allies,
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which put an end to the insolence of the barbarians and the poverty of the Hellenes, and which, besides, waged war in her own cause more capably than that city which is famed for her skill in warfare, and extricated herself from her misfortunes more quickly than these same Lacedaemonians—does not this city, I say, deserve to be praised and honored more than the state which has been outdistanced by her in all these respects? This, then, is what I had in mind to say on this occasion in comparing the achievements of Athens and Lacedaemon and the wars which they fought at the same time and against the same adversaries.
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But I think that, while those who find these words distasteful to listen to will not deny that what I have said is the truth nor, again, will they be able to cite other activities of the Lacedaemonians through which they brought to pass many blessings to the Hellenes, yet they will attempt—
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as is ever their habit—to denounce our city, to recount the most offensive acts which transpired while she held the empire of the sea, to present in a false light the adjudication of lawsuits in
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for the allies
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and her collection of tribute
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from them, and above all to dwell on the cruelties suffered at her hands by the Melians and the Scionians and the Toronians,
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thinking by these reproaches to sully the benefactions of Athens which I have just described.
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Now I, for my part, could not gainsay all the things which might justly be said against our city, nor would I attempt to do so; for I should be ashamed, as I have already said in another place,
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when all other men are of the opinion that not even the gods are free from guilt, were I to strain my conscience and attempt to persuade you that our commonwealth has never erred in any instance whatsoever.
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Nevertheless, I think I shall do one thing, namely, show that the city of the Spartans, in handling situations such as I have mentioned, has been much more harsh and severe than Athens, and that those who seek to promote the reputation of the Spartans by calumniating us are short-sighted in the extreme and are themselves to blame for the bad repute which their own friends
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incur at our hands.
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For whenever they make such charges against us, to which the Lacedaemonians are more open than ourselves, we do not find it difficult to cite against
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Sparta
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a graver offence in each case than that which has been charged against
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. For example, in the present instance, if they bring up the fact that the law-suits of the allies were tried in Athens, is there anyone so slow of wit as not to find the ready retort that the Lacedaemonians have put to death without trial more of the Hellenes
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than have ever been brought to trial and judgement here since the founding of our city?
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And if they make any complaint about our collection of the tribute, we shall be ready with a like rejoinder. For we shall show that our ancestors far more than the Lacedaemonians acted for the advantage of the states which paid them tribute. For, in the first place, these states did this, not because we had so commanded, but because they themselves had so resolved at the very time when they conferred upon us the supremacy by sea.
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In the next place, they paid their quotas, not to preserve Athens, but to preserve their own democratic polity and their own freedom and to escape falling into such great misfortunes, through the setting up of oligarchies, as were suffered under the decarchies and the domination of the Lacedaemonians. And, more than that, they paid these contributions, not from funds which they had treasured up through their own efforts, but from resources which they possessed through our aid.
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In return for these resources, had they reflected in the slightest degree, they should in all fairness have been grateful to us; for we took over their cities in some instances when they had been utterly destroyed, in others when they had been sacked and plundered by the barbarians, and advanced them to such a state of prosperity that although they contributed to us a slight proportion of the wealth which flowed in upon them, their estates were no less prosperous than those of the Peloponnesians who paid no tribute whatsoever.
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Furthermore, as to the cities which were laid waste under the rule of each of these states—a matter for which certain men reproach the Athenians alone—we shall show that things much more reprehensible were done by those whom these men are never weary of extolling. For it happened that we offended against islets so small and insignificant that many of the Hellenes do not even know of their existence, whereas the Lacedaemonians laid waste the greatest cities of the Peloponnesus—states which in every way were eminent above the others—
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and now hold for themselves the wealth of those states which, even supposing that in former times they possessed no merit, deserved the greatest possible rewards from the Hellenes because of the expedition against Troy in which they took the foremost place and furnished as its leaders men possessed not only of the virtues in which many of the common run of mankind have a part, but also of those in which no ignoble man may share.
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For
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Messene
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furnished Nestor, the wisest of all who lived in those times;
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Lacedaemon
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, Menelaus, who because of his moderation and his justice was the one man to be deemed worthy to become the son-in-law of Zeus;
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and
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Argos
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, Agamemnon, who was possessed, not of one or two of the virtues merely, but of all which anyone can name—
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and these, not in moderate, but in surpassing degree. For we shall find that no one in all the world has ever undertaken deeds more distinctive, more noble, more important, more advantageous to the Hellenes, or deserving of higher praise. These are facts which, when thus barely enumerated, some may not unreasonably question, but when they have been supported in each instance by a few words, all men will acknowledge that I speak the truth.
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However, I am not able to see clearly, but am in doubt, with what words I may proceed without making an error of judgement. For, on the one hand, I am ashamed, after having said so much about the virtue of Agamemnon, to make no mention of the things which he accomplished and so to seem to my hearers no different from men who make empty boasts and say whatever comes into their heads. But I observe, on the other hand, that the discussion of things which lie outside the scope of the subject
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is not approved but is thought rather to be confusing, and that while many misuse these digressions there are many more who condemn them.
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Therefore I fear that I too may subject myself to some such criticism. Nevertheless, I elect to lend support to the man who has experienced the same misadventure as myself and many others and failed of the reputation he deserved, and who has been the author of the greatest services to the world of his time, albeit he is less praised than those who have done nothing worthy of mention.
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For what element of glory did he lack who won a position of such exalted honor that, were all the world to unite on the search for a greater, no greater could be found? For he is the only man who was ever deemed worthy to be the leader of the armies of all Hellas. Whether he was elected by all or obtained this honor by himself, I am not able to say. But however this came about, he left no room for the rest of mankind who have in any wise won distinction since his time to surpass the glory which attaches to his name.
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And when he obtained this power, he harmed no city of Hellas; nay, so far was he from injuring any one of them that, although he took command of the Hellenes when they were in a state of mutual warfare and confusion and great misfortune, he delivered them from this condition, and, having established concord among them, indifferent to all exploits which are extravagant and spectacular and of no benefit to others, he collected the Hellenes into an army and led them forth against the barbarians.
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And no one will be found, among those who rose to fame in his time or in later generations, to have accomplished an expedition more honorable than this or more advantageous to the Hellenes. But although he achieved all this and set this example to the rest of the world, he did not receive the fame which was his due, because of those who delight more in stage-play than in services and in fiction than in truth; nay, albeit he proved himself so great, he has a reputation which is less than that of men who have not ventured even to imitate his example.
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But not for these things alone might one extol him, but also for the things he did at the same time. For he conceived of his mission in terms so lofty that he was not satisfied with making up his army from all the men in private station whom he desired to have from each of the cities of Hellas, but even persuaded men of the rank of kings, who were accustomed to do in their own states whatsoever they pleased and to give orders to the world at large, to place themselves under his command, to follow him against whomsoever he might lead them, to obey his orders, to abandon their royal manner of living and to share the life of soldiers in the field,
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and, furthermore, to imperil themselves and wage war, not for their own countries and kingdoms, but ostensibly for Helen, wife of Menelaus, though in reality for
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Hellas
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,
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that she might not again suffer such an outrage at the hands of the barbarians nor such as befell her before that time in the seizure of the entire
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Peloponnesus
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by Pelops or of
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Argos
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by Danaus or of
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Thebes
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by Cadmus.
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For what other man in the world will be found to have had forethought in these matters or to have taken measures to prevent any such misfortune in the future except one of Agamemnon’s character and power?
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There is, moreover, connected with the above achievement one which, though less significant than those which I have mentioned, is more important and more deserving of mention than those which have been extolled again and again. For he commanded an army which had come together from all the cities of
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Hellas
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, a host whose size may be imagined since it contained many of the descendants of the gods and of the direct sons of the gods
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—men who were not of the same temper as the majority of mankind nor on the same plane of thinking, but full of pride and passion and envy and ambition—,
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and yet he held that army together for ten years, not by great bribes nor by outlays of money, by which means all rulers nowadays maintain their power,
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but by the supremacy of his genius, by his ability to provide from the enemy subsistence for his soldiers, and most of all by his reputation of being better advised in the interest of others than others in their own interest.
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But the final achievement by which he crowned all these is no less worthy of admiration. For he will be found to have done nothing unseemly or unworthy of these exploits which I have already described; on the contrary, although he waged war, ostensibly against a single city, but in reality not only against all the peoples who dwelt in
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Asia
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but also against many other races of the barbarians, he did not give up fighting nor depart for home before reducing to slavery the city of him who had offended against
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Hellas
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and putting an end to the insolence of the barbarians.
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I am well aware of the space which I have given to the praises of Agamemnon’s virtue; I am well aware also that if any of you should go over these one by one, many as they are, to see what might be rejected, no one would venture to subtract a single word, and yet I know that when they are read one after the other, all will criticize me for having said much more than I should.
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For my part, if I inadvertently prolonged this topic I should be ashamed of being so lacking in perception when discoursing on a subject which no one has even ventured to discuss. But in fact I knew much better than those who will dare to take me to task that many will criticize this excess. I considered, however, that it would be less objectionable to be thought by some to disregard due measure in this part of my discourse than to leave out, in speaking of such a man, any of the merits which belong to him and which it behoves me to mention.
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I thought also that I should be applauded by the most cultivated of my hearers if I could show that I was more concerned when discoursing on the subject of virtue about doing justice to the theme than about the symmetry of my speech and that too, knowing well that the lack of due proportion in my speech would detract from my own reputation, while just appreciation of their deeds would enhance the fame of those whose praises I sing. Nevertheless I bade farewell to expediency and chose justice instead.
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And you will find that I am of this mind not only in what I am now saying but likewise upon all occasions, since it will be seen that I take more pleasure in those of my disciples who are distinguished for the character of their lives and deeds than in those who are reputed to be able speakers. And yet when they speak well, all men will assign the credit to me, even though I contribute nothing to what they say, whereas when they act right no man will fail to commend the doer of the deed even though all the world may know that it was I who advised him what to do.
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But I do not know whither I am drifting.
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For, because I think all the time that I must add the point which logically follows what I have said before, I have wandered entirely from my subject. There is, therefore, nothing left for me to do but to crave indulgence to old age for my forgetfulness and prolixity—faults which are wont to be found in men of my years—and go back to the place from which I fell into this garrulous strain.
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For I think that I now see the point from which I strayed. I was speaking in reply to those who reproach us with the misfortunes of the Melians and of villages with like populations, not meaning that we had done no wrong in these instances, but trying to show that those who are the idols of these speakers have laid waste more and greater cities than the Athenians have done, in which connection I discussed the virtues of Agamemnon and Menelaus and Nestor, saying nothing that was not true, though passing, mayhap, the bounds of moderation.
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But I did this, supposing that it would be apparent that there could be no greater crime than that of those who dared lay waste the cities which bred and reared such great men, about whom even now one might say many noble things. But it is perhaps foolish to linger upon a single point, as if there were any lack, as if there were not, on the contrary, a superabundance of things to say about the cruelty and the harshness of the Lacedaemonians.
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For the Lacedaemonians were not satisfied with wronging these cities and men of this character, but treated in the same way those who had set out with them from the same country, joined with them in the same expedition, and shared with them the same perils
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—I mean the Argives and the Messenians. For they determined to plunge these also into the very same misfortunes which had been visited upon their former victims.
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They did not cease laying siege to the Messenians until they had driven them from their territory, and with the same object they are even now making war upon the Argives.
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Furthermore, it would be strange if, having spoken of these wrongs, I failed to mention their treatment of the Plataeans. It was on the soil of
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Plataea
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that the Lacedaemonians had encamped with us and with the other allies, drawn up for battle against our enemies;
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there they had offered sacrifices to the deities worshipped by the Plataeans;
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and there we had won freedom, not only for the Hellenes who fought with us, but also for those who were compelled to be on the side of the Persians,
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and we accomplished this with the help of the Plataeans, who alone of the Boeotians fought with us in that war.
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And yet, after no great interval of time, the Lacedaemonians, to gratify
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Thebes
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,
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reduced the Plataeans by siege and put them all to the sword with the exception of those who had been able to escape through their lines.
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Little did Athens resemble
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Sparta
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in the treatment of these peoples;
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for, while the Lacedaemonians did not scruple to commit such wrongs both against the benefactors of
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Hellas
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and against their own kinsmen,
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our ancestors, on the other hand, gave the surviving Messenians a home in
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Naupactus
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and adopted the Plataeans who had escaped with their lives as Athenian citizens and shared with them all the privileges which they themselves enjoyed.
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So that if we had nothing else to say about these two cities, it is easy to judge from these instances what was the character of each and which of the two laid waste more and greater cities.
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I perceive that my feelings are changing to the opposite of those which I described a little while ago. For then I fell into a state of doubt and perplexity and forgetfulness, but now I realize clearly that I am not keeping the mildness of speech which I had when I began to write my discourse; on the contrary, I am venturing to discuss matters about which I did not think that I should speak, I am more aggressive in temper than is my wont, and I am losing control over some of the things which I utter because of the multitude of things which rush into my mind to say.
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Since, however, the impulse has come to me to speak frankly and I have removed the curb from my tongue, and since I took a subject which is of such a character that it is neither honorable nor possible to leave out the kind of facts from which it can be proved that our city has been of greater service to the Hellenes than
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Lacedaemon
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, I must not be silent either about the other wrongs which have not yet been told, albeit they have been done among the Hellenes, but must show that our ancestors have been slow pupils
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in wrong-doing, whereas the Lacedaemonians have in some respects been the first to point the way and in others have been the sole offenders.
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Now most people upbraid both cities because, while pretending that they risked the perils of war against the barbarians for the sake of the Hellenes, they did not in fact allow the various states to be independent and manage their own affairs in whatever way was expedient for each of them, but, on the contrary, divided them up, as if they had taken them captive in war, and reduced them all to slavery, acting no differently than those who rob others of their slaves, on the pretext of liberating them, only to compel them to slave for their new masters.
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But it is not the fault of the Athenians that these complaints are made and many others more bitter than these, but rather of those who now in what is being said, as in times past in all that has been done, have been in the opposite camp from us. For no man can show that our ancestors during the countless years of our early history ever attempted to impose our rule over any city great or small, whereas all men know that the Lacedaemonians, from the time when they entered the Peloponnesus, have had no other object in their deeds or in their designs than to impose their rule if possible over all men but, failing that, over the peoples of the Peloponnesus.
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And as to the stirring up of faction and slaughter and revolution in these cities, which certain critics impute both to Athens and to
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Sparta
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, you will find that the Lacedaemonians have filled all the states, excepting a very few, with these misfortunes and afflictions,
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whereas no one would dare even to allege that our city, before the disaster which befell her in the
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,
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ever perpetrated such a thing among her allies.
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But when the Lacedaemonians, after having been in the position of dictators over the Hellenes, were being driven from control of affairs—at that juncture, when the other cities were rent by faction, two or three of our generals (I will not hide the truth from you) mistreated some of them, thinking that if they should imitate the deeds of Spartans they would be better able to control them.
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