ISOCRATES
ON THE UNION OF GREECE TO RESIST PERSIA[1]
(380 B.C.)
Born in 436 B.C., and died in 338; lived from the age of Pericles to that of Alexander; his teachings as to style influenced Plato, Demosthenes, and Cicero; usually classed as one of the ten Attic orators, but more properly a publicist.
It is confessed indeed that our state is the most ancient and the greatest, and the most celebrated among all men; and the foundation being thus glorious, on account of what follows these it is still more befitting that we should be honored. For we inhabit this city, not having expelled others, nor having found it deserted, nor collected promiscuously from many nations, but we are of such honorable and genuine birth that we continue for all time possessing this land from which we were born, being sprung from the soil, and being able to call our city by the same names as our nearest relations, for we alone of all the Greeks have a right to call the same—nurse and fatherland and mother. And yet it is right that
- ↑ Supposed to have been first published at Olympia 380 B.C., and here abridged. It has been pointed out that, while the conquest of Asia by Alexander was not due to a union of Athens and Sparta, that achievement, in some other ways, was a justification of the plans advocated by Isocrates. Translated by Rev. James Rice. The writing and revising of this work are said to have beeen extended by Isocrates over a period of ten years.
89
