Panegyricus (114-117)

And of their banishments, their civil strife, their subversion of laws, their political revolutions, their atrocities upon children, their insults to women, their pillage of estates, who could tell the tale? I can only say this much of the whole business—the severities under our administration could have been readily brought to an end by a single vote of the people,[*] while the murders and acts of violence under their regime are beyond any power to remedy.

And, furthermore, not even the present peace, nor yet that “autonomy” which is inscribed in the treaties[*] but is not found in our governments, is preferable to the rule of Athens. For who would desire a condition of things where pirates command the seas[*] and mercenaries occupy our cities;

where fellow-countrymen, instead of waging war in defense of their territories against strangers, are fighting within their own walls[*] against each other; where more cities have been captured in war[*] than before we made the peace; and where revolutions follow so thickly upon each other that those who are at home in their own countries are more dejected than those who have been punished with exile? For the former are in dread of what is to come, while the latter live ever in the hope of their return.

And so far are the states removed from “freedom” and “autonomy”[*] that some of them are ruled by tyrants, some are controlled by alien governors, some have been sacked and razed,[*] and some have become slaves to the barbarians—the same barbarians whom we once so chastened for their temerity in crossing over into Europe, and for their overweening pride,