,
hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be
adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between
hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger.
In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by
conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the
favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness
to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly
from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment,
not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who, fearless of
consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency,
but in the confidence of liberality.

"In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I
doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to
depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a
versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown
out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state
acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her contemporaries
is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives
no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they
have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to
rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be
ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown
it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or
other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the
impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced
every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere,
whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind
us. Such is the Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their
resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one
of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.

"Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our
country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the
same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the
panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by definite
proofs established. That panegyric is now in a great measure complete;
for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the hero