ent of the best which has the approval of the
many. For kings we have always had, first hereditary and then elected,
and authority is mostly in the hands of the people, who dispense offices
and power to those who appear to be most deserving of them. Neither is
a man rejected from weakness or poverty or obscurity of origin, nor
honoured by reason of the opposite, as in other states, but there is one
principle--he who appears to be wise and good is a governor and ruler.
The basis of this our government is equality of birth; for other states
are made up of all sorts and unequal conditions of men, and therefore
their governments are unequal; there are tyrannies and there are
oligarchies, in which the one party are slaves and the others masters.
But we and our citizens are brethren, the children all of one mother,
and we do not think it right to be one another's masters or servants;
but the natural equality of birth compels us to seek for legal equality,
and to recognize no superiority except in the reputation of virtue and
wisdom.

And so their and our fathers, and these, too, our brethren, being nobly
born and having been brought up in all freedom, did both in their public
and private capacity many noble deeds famous over the whole world. They
were the deeds of men who thought that they ought to fight both against
Hellenes for the sake of Hellenes on behalf of freedom, and against
barbarians in the common interest of Hellas. Time would fail me to tell
of their defence of their country against the invasion of Eumolpus and
the Amazons, or of their defence of the Argives against the Cadmeians,
or of the Heracleids against the Argives; besides, the poets have
already declared in song to all mankind their glory, and therefore any
commemoration of their deeds in prose which we might attempt would hold
a second place. They already have their reward, and I say no more of
them; but there are other worthy deeds of which no poet has worthily
sung, and which are still wooing the poet's muse. Of these I am bound to
make honourable mention, and shall invoke others to sing of them also
in lyric and other strains, in a manner becoming the actors. And first
I will tell how the Persians, lords of Asia, were enslaving Europe, and
how the children of this land, who were our fathers, held them back.
Of these I will speak first, and praise their valour, as is meet and
fitting. He who would rightly estimate them should place himself in
thought a