times was made manifest. Or, if you please, we may come down to things
of a later date, which their descendants and the heroes of days not so
long anterior to our own wrought in the struggle with the lords of Asia,
(16) nay of Europe also, as far as Macedonia: a people possessing a
power and means of attack far exceeding any who had gone before--who,
moreover, had accomplished the doughtiest deeds. These things the men of
Athens wrought partly single-handed, (17) and partly as sharers with
the Peloponnesians in laurels won by land and sea. Heroes were these men
also, far outshining, as tradition tells us, the peoples of their time.

(12) Cf. "Il." ii. 547, {'Erekhtheos megaletoros k.t.l.}

(13) Cf. Isoc. "Paneg." 19, who handles all the topics.

(14) Commonly spoken of as "the Return." See Grote, "H. G." II. ch.
xviii.

(15) Against the Amazons and Thracians; cf. Herod. ix. 27; Plut.
"Thes." 27.

(16) The "Persian" wars; cf. Thucyd. I. i.

(17) He omits the Plataeans.

Per. Yes, so runs the story of their heroism.

Soc. Therefore it is that, amidst the many changes of inhabitants, and
the migrations which have, wave after wave, swept over Hellas, these
maintained themselves in their own land, unmoved; so that it was a
common thing for others to turn to them as to a court of appeal on
points of right, or to flee to Athens as a harbour of refuge from the
hand of the oppressor. (18)

(18) Cf. (Plat.) "Menex."; Isocr. "Paneg."

Then Pericles: And the wonder to me, Socrates, is how our city ever came
to decline.

Soc. I think we are victims of our own success. Like some athlete, (19)
whose facile preponderance in the arena has betrayed him into laxity
until he eventually succumbs to punier antagonists, so we Athenians,
in the plenitude of our superiority, have neglected ourselves and are
become degenerate.

(19) Reading {athletai tines}, or if {alloi tines}, translate "any one
else."

Per. What then ought we to do now to recover our former virtue?

Soc. There need be no mystery about that, I think. We can rediscover the
institutions of our forefathers--applying them to the regulation of our
lives with something of their precision, and not improbably with like
success; or we can imitate those who stand at the front of affairs
to-day, (20) adapting to ourselves their rule of life, in which case, if
we live up to the standard of our models, we may hope at least to rival
their excellence,