Now although we have shown ourselves to be of such character and have given so
 convincing proof that we do not covet the possessions of others, we are brazenly denounced
 by those who had a hand in the decarchies In Athens and in other states under ther influence there
 was in the oligarchical party a group of Spartan sympathizers who out-Spartaned the
 Spartans. After the downfall of Athens at
 the close of the Peloponnesian war, when Sparta became the supreme power in Greece , 404 B.C. , governing commissions of ten
 (“decarchies”) composed of these extremists, with a Spartan harmost and garrison to
 support them, were set up in most of these states by the Spartan general Lysander ( Xen. Hell. 3.4.2 ). In Athens the “decarchy” succeeded the rule of the thirty tyrants. Compare
 what Isocrates says here about the decarchies with Isoc.
 5.95 and Isoc. 12.54 . —men who have befouled
 their own countries, who have made the crimes of the past seem insignificant, and have
 left the would-be scoundrels of the future no chance to exceed their villiany; and who,
 for all that, profess to follow the ways of Lacedaemon , when they practise the very opposite, and bewail the disasters
 of the Melians, when they have shamelessly inflicted irreparable wrongs upon their own
 citizens. For what crime have they overlooked? What act of shame or outrage is wanting in their careers? They regarded the most lawless
 of men as the most loyal; they courted traitors as if they were benefactors; they chose to
 be slaves to one of the Helots The reference is to
 Lysander, who on his mother’s side was of Helot blood. The Helots were serfs of the
 Spartans. so that they might oppress their own countries; they honored the
 assassins and murderers of their fellow-citizens more than their own parents; and to such a stage of brutishness did they bring us all that, whereas in former times,
 because of the prosperity which prevailed, every one of us found many to sympathize with
 him even in trifling reverses, yet under the rule of these men, because of the multitude
 of our own calamities, we ceased feeling pity for each other, since there was no man to
 whom they allowed enough of respite so that he could share another’s burdens. For what man dwelt beyond their reach? What man was so far removed from public life that
 he was not forced into close touch with the disasters into which such creatures plunged
 us? But in the face of all this, these men, who brought their own cities to such a pitch
 of anarchy, do not blush to make unjust charges against our city; nay, to crown their
 other effronteries, they even have the audacity to talk of the private and public suits
 which were once tried in Athens , when they
 themselves put to death without trial more men In
 Athens 1500, according to Isoc. 7.67 ; Isoc. 20.11 . in
 the space of three months than Athens tried
 during the whole period of her supremacy.