Athenian ancestors

For we have been depraved for a long time by men whose only ability is to cheat and delude—men who have held the people in such contempt that whenever they wish to bring about a state of war with any city, these very men who are paid for what they say have the audacity to tell us that we should follow the example of our ancestors and not allow ourselves to be made a laughing-stock nor permit those …

And so far are we inferior to our ancestors, both those who enjoyed the esteem of the Hellenes and those who incurred their hatred, that whereas they, when they resolved to wage war against any state, deemed it their duty, notwithstanding that the Acropolis was stored with silver and gold, to face danger in their own persons in support of their resolutions, we, on the other hand, not withstanding …

Do they mean those who lived at the time of the Persian Wars or those who governed the city before the Decelean War?

For who does not himself know or has not heard from the tragic poets at the Dionysia of the misfortunes which befell Adrastus at Thebes, how in his desire to restore to power the son of Oedipus, his own son-in-law, he lost a great number of his Argive soldiers in the battle and saw all of his captains slain, though saving his own life in dishonor, and, when he failed to obtain a truce and was unab …

For in the three wars, apart from the Trojan war, which were fought by the Hellenes against the barbarians—in all these they placed our city in the forefront of the fighting.

When our people heard this plea, they let no time go by but at once dispatched ambassadors to Thebes to advise her people that they be more reverent in their deliberations regarding the recovery of the dead and that they render a decision which would be more lawful than that which they had previously made, and to hint to them also that the Athenians would not countenance their transgression of the …

But the really scandalous thing is, not that our counsels are inferior to those of our ancestors, who surpassed all mankind in virtue, but that they are worse than those of all other nations.

Ah, how loud would be the lamentation of those great men who laid down their lives for glory and for liberty, and left behind them the monuments of many noble achievements, if they could see how today the progress of our city has ended in the form and rank of a dependant, and that the question of the hour is—whether Charidemus is entitled to personal protection!

Can you name anything that you have acquired and that you will bequeath to posterity, as they bequeathed the Chersonesus, and Amphipolis, and the glory of noble exploits?

But I will invoke your ancestors and the virtues of your ancestors, whose memory time has not effaced.

It is preposterous that your ancestors faced death to save the laws from destruction, but that you do not even punish those who have offended against the laws;

It is said that Aristeides was banished by your ancestors and lived in Aegina till the people recalled him, and that Miltiades and Pericles, being fined thirty and fifty talents respectively, did not try to harangue the people until they had paid in full.

the effect of this vote will be that you have received authority to transgress with impunity the decisions of the jury and the laws handed down by our ancestors—to do, in fact, whatever you please.

As it stands, then, this law reflects on your city not honor but disgrace, unworthy alike of your ancestors and of yourselves;

For our prosperity is inherited from our ancestors, and is of an earlier date than the prosperity not only of Philip, but, roughly speaking, of all the kings that have ever reigned in Macedonia.

what a disgrace if one, with only the tradition of Macedonia behind him, so cheerfully courts danger that, in the task of extending his sway, he has been wounded in every limb on the battle-field, but Athenians, whose ancestral boast it is in war to yield to none and conquer all, should renounce, through indolence or cowardice, alike the deeds of their ancestors and the interests of their fatherland.

Reflect, rather, what a disgrace it would be if your fathers faced many hardships and great dangers in fighting the Lacedaemonians.

You have got into the habit of acting thus, not because in ability you are inferior to your ancestors, but because it was second nature with them to have a high opinion of themselves, while you, Athenians, have lost that virtue.

Rewards to citizens, rightly thus granted by our ancestors, are wrongly granted by you.

But reflect on what might be named as the outstanding achievements of your ancestors and of yourselves, if haply the comparison may yet enable you to become your own masters.

Those who praise your ancestors, men of Athens, seem to me to choose an acceptable theme, which yet fails to do any real service to those whom they eulogize;

But he will hear that our resources consist of the ratable value of our country, and how we can fight in defence of it against invaders from his land, those ancestors of his who fought at Marathon best know;

He knows that with two hundred galleys, of which we provided one hundred, our ancestors destroyed a thousand of his ships, and he will hear that we have three hundred of our own ready for sea, so that even if he were raving mad, he would scarcely think it a light thing to incur the hostility of our city.

For I suppose he learns from history and from report that your ancestors, when they might, at the price of submission to the Great King, have become the paramount power in Greece, not only refused to entertain that proposal, conveyed to them by Alexander, an ancestor of Philip’s line, but chose to quit their homes and endure every hardship, and thereafter wrought those deeds which all men are alwa …

I am not indeed blaming the man who does your duty for you, but I call on you to do that for yourselves which you reward others for doing, and not to desert that post of honor, men of Athens, which your ancestors through many glorious hazards won and bequeathed to you.

Yet reflect, men of Athens, on what might be named as the outstanding achievements of the days of your ancestors and those of your own time.

what manner of men they were at home, in public or in private life, look round you and see.

I earnestly implore you to consider what was the intention of the Athenians who did this thing, or what was their proud claim.

On the contrary, when you, or rather the Athenians of that day, were thought to be showing a want of consideration in dealing with others, all felt it their duty, even those who had no grievance against them, to go to war in support of those who had been injured;

That this is so, you surely see for yourselves with regard to the present, and you need no evidence of mine, but that it was the opposite in the days of old I will prove, not in my own words, but by the written record of your ancestors, which they engraved on a bronze pillar and set up in the Acropolis.

Such, then, as I have described, was the nature of the Council which our forefathers charged with the supervision of moral discipline—a council which considered that those who believed that the best citizens are produced in a state where the laws are prescribed with the greatest exactness were blind to the truth;

But perhaps some might object to what I have said on the ground that I praise the conditions of life as they were in those days, but neglect to explain the reasons why our forefathers managed so well both in their relations with each other and in their government of the state.

For their only care was not to destroy any institution of their fathers and to introduce nothing which was not approved by custom, believing that reverence consists, not in extravagant expenditures, but in disturbing none of the rites which their ancestors had handed on to them.

For when the Argives came to your ancestors and implored them to take up for burial the bodies of the dead at the foot of the Cadmea, your forefathers yielded to their persuasion and compelled the Thebans to adopt measures more conformable to our usage, and thus not only gained renown for themselves in those times, but also bequeathed to your city a glory never to be forgotten for all time to come …

It is a just request, for our ancestors, we are told, when in the Persian War your fathers had abandoned this land, alone of those who lived outside of the Peloponnesus shared in their perils and thus helped them to save their city.

You must also take some thought of your ancestors and not be negligent of the piety due to them.