Enemies of Athens
group · 3 works · 3 mentions · 4 anchored passages
enemies · enemy · enemies of Athens · hostile · those who scoff
in the texts
Against Timocrates
External enemies against whom Athens must act swiftly.
Men of Athens, we may well be satisfied if, with everything in good order, and with no such law as this, we hold advantage over our enemies, keep pace with the swift emergencies and sudden chances of warfare, and are never behindhand.
And if you have to fight in self-defence, do you really think that the enemy will wait for the evasions and rogueries of every scoundrel in Athens?
On Organization
External adversaries against whom Athens must use arms and maintain power.
next, that our generals may not lead mercenaries to the plunder of our allies without even coming in sight of the enemy, so that the profit is all their own, while the State at large incurs the hatred and the abuse, but that they may have their own citizens at their back, and may so deal with our enemies as they now deal with our friends.
I know that these courts are sovereign to uphold the rights of citizen against citizen, but it is by arms that you must conquer the enemy, and upon arms depends the safety of the State.
For you have many exploits to your credit from the earliest times, and it would be disgraceful to abandon the friends you have, while it is impossible to trust your enemies and allow them to grow powerful.
Antidosis
Hostile outsiders and detractors whose slanders are strengthened by the conduct of sycophants.
nay, you have so far mistaken your true interests that you are more pleased with those who cause you to be reviled than with those who cause you to be praised, and you think that those who have made many people hate the city are better friends of the demos than those who have inspired good will toward Athens in all with whom they have had to deal.
Take care, therefore, not to do yourselves this wrong and not to lend support to the slanders of the enemies of Athens rather than to the eulogies of her friends.
There are, on the other hand, those who scoff at this praise, and, dwelling upon the cruel and iniquitous practices of the sycophants, denounce the whole city as savage and insupportable.