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.
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?
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.
On Organization
External adversaries against whom Athens must use arms and maintain power.
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 resolutions will not give your men victory in battle, but those who with the help of arms conquer the enemy shall win for you power and security to pass resolutions and to do what you will.
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.
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.
These say that Athens is the only city, the others being mere villages, and that she deserves to be termed the capital of Hellas both because of her size and because of the resources which she furnishes to the rest of the world, and most of all because of the character of her inhabitants;