Athenians

Now the Athenians were the first who laid down their armour, and by a more easy style of life changed to greater luxury.

whereas the Athenians had in course of time taken ships from the states [in their league,] except the Chians and Lesbians, and had commanded all to pay a tribute in money.

but afterwards the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, having quarrelled, waged war against each other with their allies:

"Indeed, I do not so much envy the Athenians for the expenditure and extravagance lavished upon their city and temples as I admire the deeds their ancestors performed.

"And I should have been glad," said Philip in jest, "to cede Amphipolis to the Athenians in exchange for Demosthenes' formidable power.

And yet all that one might say against the Athenians or against the Lacedaemonians or against whomever, among whom certain other things are in a poor and very neglectful state, will fight along with me;

The law of Moses too, for the sanction of capital punishments, gives reasons which operate no less with other nations, than with the Jewish people.

From whence Thucydides gives the name of infinite space to unoccupied lands, and Isocrates speaking of that occupied by the Athenians calls it that which has been measured by us into alloted parts.

Thus Ilioneus in Virgil calls heaven to witness the injustice of the Africans in driving him and his shipwrecked companions from the hospitable use of the shore, and we are informed by Plutarch in his life of Pericles that all the Grecians approved of the complaint, which the Megarensians made against the Athenians, who had prohibited them from setting foot upon the soil of their territories, or c …

When the Athenians at home got the news of the battle at Notium, they were angry with Alcibiades, thinking that he had lost the ships through neglect of duty and dissolute conduct, and they chose ten new generals, Conon, Diomedon, Leon, Pericles, Erasinides, Aristocrates, Archestratus, Protomachus, Thrasyllus, and Aristogenes.

Meanwhile the Athenians at Sestus, learning that Mindarus was planning to sail against them with sixty ships, withdrew by night to Cardia.

And when the Athenian day-watcher described him, he signalled to the generals, and they put out against him with twenty ships;

Now of these two peoples, Croesus learned that the Attic was held in subjection and divided into factions by Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates, who at that time was sovereign over the Athenians.

“Athenians, give a hearty welcome to Pisistratus, whom Athena herself honors above all men and is bringing back to her own acropolis.

The Athenians did, and by this means Pisistratus gained Athens for the third time, rooting his sovereignty in a strong guard and revenue collected both from Athens and from the district of the river Strymon, and he took hostage the sons of the Athenians who remained and did not leave the city at once, and placed these in Naxos.

For, in the first place, as long as the Lacedaemonians were at war with the Athenians, he bore his part with them;

For when the Persians and their followers came with a vast array to blot Athens out of existence, the Athenians dared, unaided, to withstand them, and won the victory.

and Socrates, suspecting that his becoming a friend of Cyrus might be a cause for accusation against Xenophon on the part of the Athenian government, for the reason that Cyrus was thought to have given the Lacedaemonians zealous aid in their war against Athens, advised Xenophon to go to Delphi and consult the god in regard to this journey.

But when the Athenians inquire of them by divination and they reply, do you not suppose that to you, too, the answer is given?

And again, the Athenians are more ambitious and more high-minded than other peoples;

Don’t you see what good discipline they maintain in their fleets, how well they obey the umpires in athletic contests, how they take orders from the choir-trainers as readily as any?

Agamemnon went his way rejoicing, and presently found Menestheus, son of Peteos, tarrying in his place, and with him were the Athenians loud of tongue in battle.

The chosen men of the Athenians were in the van, led by Menestheus son of Peteos, with whom were also Pheidas, Stichios, and stalwart Bias:

Stichios and Menestheus, leaders of the Athenians, bore away Amphimakhos to the host of the Achaeans, while the two brave and impetuous Ajaxes did the like by Imbrios.

in our public assemblies even to this day, before any other business is transacted, the Athenians call down curses upon any citizen who proposes friendly overtures to the Persians;

for the Peloponnesians, put to shame by our courage, and thinking, moreover, that if the Athenians should first be destroyed, they could not themselves be saved from destruction, and that if the Athenians should succeed, their own cities would be brought into disrepute, they were constrained to share the dangers.

when no light of deliverance could be glimpsed in any quarter, but, on the contrary, the Athenians had been abandoned by their allies and cheated of their every hope;

Now it was reported to us by one and another who wished to show friendship to our city, that the Amphissians, who were at that time dominated by the Thebans and were their abject servants, were in the act of bringing in a resolution against our city, to the effect that the people of Athens be fined fifty talents, because we had affixed gilded shields to the new temple and dedicated them before the …

and further, that you choose other ambassadors to go to Oreus to beg the people of that city to make common cause with the Athenians.

I, in behalf of the people of Athens, in my own behalf, and in behalf of my children and my house, do come to the help of the god and the sacred land according unto the oath, with hand and foot and voice, and all my powers and I purge our city of this impiety.

However, after you had chosen a Council by lot and elected Nomothetae, you began to discover that there were not a few of the laws of Solon and Draco under which numbers of citizens were liable, owing to previous events.

Now when we saw that a great many citizens had been placed in a serious position either by previous laws or by previous decrees, we enacted the laws which follow as a safeguard against the very thing which is now going on;

for my own forefathers themselves played no small part in those very exploits to which Athens owed her salvation, and I therefore have the right to expect from you the mercy shown to you yourselves by the Greeks.

When we had got ready to set out hither, the Moon met us, and commanded us first to greet the Athenians and their allies;

So may I conquer, and be accounted skillful, as that, deeming you to be clever spectators, and this to be the cleverest of my comedies, I thought proper to let you first taste that comedy, which gave me the greatest labour.

Spectators, I will freely declare to you the truth, by Bacchus, who nurtured me!

And the power of the Athenian people itself over all things—not to seek others—turned to the frenzy and licence of the multitude, a plague .

And so in no other state, save in that where the power of the people is supreme, has liberty any dwelling—than which surely nothing can be sweeter, and which, if it is not equal, is not even liberty at all.

"And—to return now to the author of my discourse—from this excessive licence, which they alone think liberty, he says that a tyrant springs up, as it were, from a certain stock and is, as it were, born.

And Diotima the Mantinean, the Athenians having sacrificed before the plague, made a ten-year postponement of the disease for them;

The harvest-wreath bears figs and rich loaves, and honey in a cup, and oil to anoint oneself.

For the Athenians used to cry out:

The man who introduced it was of opinion that, as every citizen has an equal share in civil rights, so everybody should have an equal share in the laws;

If, men of Athens, the decree had been made for the benefit of a man dwelling in a free state, and living under its laws as a free citizen, it would have been less discreditable, though still unwarranted;

In my judgement, men of Athens, everyone who desires to become an Athenian citizen, because he has fallen in love with our customs and laws, will make his home in our midst, as soon as he receives our franchise, and will enjoy his share in the advantages he coveted.

Thus, when Athenian citizens were empowered for the first time by the Laws of Solon to execute Testaments, they were forbidden to disinherit their direct male descendants.

The Athenian Will was, no doubt, indigenous, but then, as will appear presently, it was only an inchoate Testament.

The classical scholar does not require to be reminded that in exactly the same manner the Athenian Bill of Pains and Penalties, or εἰσαγγελία, survived the establishment of regular tribunals.

This ought to fill all Athenians with pride and make them appreciate at their worth those who have given to the city this reputation.

For given a man with a mind which is capable of finding out and learning the truth and of working hard and remembering what it learns, and also with a voice and a clarity of utterance which are able to captivate the audience, not only by what he says, but by the music of his words, and, finally, with an assurance which is not an expression of bravado, but which, tempered by sobriety, so fortifies …

and Pericles studied under two of the sophists, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae and Damon, the latter in his day reputed to be the wisest among the Athenians.

Now, however, we use mercenaries as heavy-armed troops but compel citizens to row the ships, with the result that when they land in hostile territory these men, who claim the right to rule over the Hellenes, disembark with their cushions under their arms, while men who are of the character which I have just described take the field with shield and spear!

For suppose that a stranger from another part of the world were to come to Athens, having had no time to be tainted with our depravity, but brought suddenly face to face with what goes on here, would he not think that we are mad and bereft of our senses, seeing that we plume ourselves upon the deeds of our ancestors and think fit to eulogize our city by dwelling upon the achievements of their time …

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 …

It was, was it not, that peace has never yet caused the fall of the Athenian democracy.

Now had the Athenian people never made peace with Sparta in the past, our lack of previous experience and the untrustworthy character of the Spartans might have justified such fears.

But some of you fail to see that although our political leaders have no objection to peace in the abstract, they are opposed to such measures as would lead to it, on the ground that the people would be in very grave danger of seeing the existing constitution overthrown once peace was concluded.

but the crickets only chirrup among the fig-trees for a month or two, whereas the Athenians spend their whole lives in chanting forth judgments from their law-courts.

for, to get a public funeral, we shall tell the Strategi that we fell at Orneae, fighting the country's foes.

No, if anything, we are anti-dicasts.

if any rise up to be tyrants, or help to establish the tyranny, both he and his family shall be without civic rights.

When these had been taken, they made an agreement for the safety of the children, and within five days, having removed their possessions, surrendered the Acropolis to the Athenians in the archonship of Harpactides, having held the tyranny after their father's death about seventeen years, and altogether, with the years their father ruled, forty-nine all but one.

nor did the Spartans treating with the Athenians recall the occasions when Sparta had aided Athens, but those on which Athens had aided Sparta.

just as, if anyone says that the commonwealth of the Athenians is ruled by the counsel of the Areopagus, the word 'of the Areopagus' is omitted;

The Athenians, again, did not even know who Pan was, until Philippides told them.

Do not the Argives sacrifice to Aphrodite "the Open-thighed," the Athenians to "the Courtesan," and the Syracusans to "the Fair-buttocked," whom Nicander the poet has somewhere called "the Beautiful-rumped"?