Oration 44
Imperial Dio Chrysostom Greek- To me, fellow citizens, no sight is more pleasant than yours, no voice more dear, no honours greater than those here, no praise more brilliant than that which comes from you. Not even if all the Greeks, and the Roman people besides, should admire and praise me, would that so gladden my mind. For in truth Homer, who said many wise and divine things, said nothing wiser than this verse, nor truer: that "nothing is sweeter than one's own fatherland."
- Know well, however, that I hold all honours — both those you now propose and any others there may be — in your goodwill and friendship, and of nothing else have I need. For this is most sufficient for a reasonable man, to be cherished by his own citizens; and he who has this, what further need would he have of statues, or proclamations, or front seats — or even of a hammered golden image set up in the most conspicuous temples? For one word spoken from goodwill and friendship is worth more than all the gold among men, and crowns, and the other things that seem brilliant. So, then, in obedience to me, act thus.
- But if after all I must hold honours of that kind too, I have many others among you: on the one hand, the honours of my father, with which you honoured him as a good man who, all the time he lived, justly presided over this city; on the other, those of my mother, to whom you set up both an image and a shrine,
- and those of my grandfathers and the rest of my ancestors, and besides those of my brothers and the other kinsmen. For there are many statues, and public burials, and funeral games, and many other honourable things, which have come to them from this city — of none of which have I forgotten, but I know them all as exactly as can be, and I think that I myself owe you thanks for these, and I pray to the gods that I may become able to repay them. For I know that they too became worthy of much, and justly obtained everything; yet in all things the city surpassed them. For even all that they wished but, through some chance, were unable to do — for these too the fatherland rendered them thanks.
- My grandfather, at any rate, had he longer enjoyed the friendship of the emperor of that time, and had the period not been altogether brief, intended, as they say, to win freedom for the city, and had already made his proposal concerning this. But one must not despair, so long as the city brings forth good and ambitious men, such as those of the present day. For I, who have been in many cities, know no better men than yours. And I would say more about each, were I not reluctant to praise men nearly all of whom are my kinsmen, and that as though paying off a kind of debt for the honours done to myself.
- For indeed I listened to these men too — and though greatly abashed, nonetheless on account of the speakers themselves, admiring in them their open generosity and their zeal, and besides their power in speaking. It is no marvel, then, that I have so greatly loved such a fatherland that I would choose neither Athens nor Argos nor Lacedaemon — which are the first and most famous of the Greek cities — to be my fatherland in preference to this; and this I have shown by deed. For when many in many places urged me both to stay and to preside over their public affairs — not now only, but before too, when I was an exile (and some sent decrees to the emperor expressing gratitude for the honour done to me) — never even so far as a word did I make any such promise, nor did I acquire either house or land among others,
- that I might have no token of a fatherland anywhere else. For it would indeed be a dreadful thing if men were to be more unjust than bees. For never has one of them, leaving its own hive, removed to another that is larger or more flourishing, but each fills and increases its own swarm, even if the place be colder and the pastures worse and the dew less, and even if the work about the combs be harder and the keeper more careless. And so exceedingly, they say, do they love one another and each its own swarm, that whenever they are caught outside by a storm, a great wind having arisen, each one, taking up a stone for its feet as a kind of ballast, flies thus, that they may not be carried off course by the wind nor miss their hive.
- When, then, a man has a fatherland so zealous and so good, how can he but hold all else of less account than this? Reckoning these things, I rejoice, seeing both my own son and my nephew and the other young men — and many do I see, with god's help, and all of good parents and in form too like the good — so minded as to vie with one another, without envy and jealousy, and with the rest of men, for virtue and good repute, both their own and their fatherland's, and as to how each may be first in the fatherland by being just, and a lover of his city, and not without power to do some good and to exalt the fatherland.
- For know well that, though it is not the greatest of cities, nor the longest inhabited, it is better known than many even among the rest of men, and well-nigh, in all the contests with the Greeks, has long furnished its own citizens as men ranked not among the last, nor among the third or second. And I say this not on my own behalf, but on behalf of the others — of whom some, going abroad and becoming known to a greater number, have won a conspicuous renown, while others, taking part in public affairs here and remaining, are in no way worse than they, whether in words or in deeds.
- And I see men becoming good and worthy of mention in the city not only through oratory, but also through philosophy; and on their behalf I, both privately to the young and publicly, when there is occasion, will not shrink from exhorting. And I think it right that you, the people, should, on the one hand, hope that the things which come from the powerful will be, and pray that some honour or glory or abundance of money may come about; but, on the other hand, should possess the things that come from yourselves — surpassing the other peoples in good order, in reverence, in obedience to good men, in love of work, in temperance regarding the daily life, in neglecting neither the body nor the soul (so far as each man's affairs afford him leisure), in eagerly rearing and educating your children, in presenting the city as truly Greek and free of uproar and well-settled, and in turning the keenness and the manliness of your nature, and your intelligence, toward greater and nobler things, while keeping aloof, so far as possible, from discord and disturbance and from clashing with one another.
- For there is, men, an education of a people, and a character of a city that is philosophic and reasonable. And not to the Lacedaemonians alone, nor to the Athenians of old, nor to certain others, did it fall, through orderly governance, to show their cities great and conspicuous out of very small and weak beginnings; but it is possible even now for those who wish such a thing. For your practising these things will profit you more than the multitude of your councillors, and more than your affairs being conducted among you, and more than your having some revenue of money from abroad, and more than freedom itself, if indeed you ever obtain that too.
- For know well that the so-called freedom — that name which comes from the powerful and those who can grant it — it is sometimes not possible to acquire; but the true freedom, which is won by men in fact, both a man and each city receives from itself, by administering its own affairs high-mindedly and not basely nor illiberally. And that you may know my mind from another source too, I will read you a letter which I myself sent to the emperor when I was summoned — in which I begged to be released to come to you — and the one he wrote in reply.