For the Hellenes are subject, some to us, others to the Lacedaemonians, the polities The Greek states which were under the influence of Athens were democratic; those under Sparta ’s influence, oligarchic. by which they
 govern their states having thus divided most of them. If any man, therefore, thinks that
 before he brings the leading states into friendly relations, the rest will unite in doing
 any good thing, he is all too simple and out of touch with the actual conditions. No, the man who does not aim merely to make an oratorical display, but desires to
 accomplish something as well, must seek out such arguments as will persuade these two
 states to share and share alike with each other, to divide the supremacy between them, and
 to wrest from the barbarians the advantages which at the present time they desire to seize
 for themselves at the expense of the Hellenes. Almost the
 same language is used in Isoc. 5.9 . 
 Now our own city could easily be induced to adopt this policy, but at present the
 Lacedaemonians are still hard to persuade; for they have inherited the false doctrine that
 leadership is theirs by ancestral right. If, however, one should prove to them that this
 honor belongs to us rather than to them, perhaps they might give up splitting hairs about
 this question and pursue their true interests. So, then, the other speakers also should have made this their starting-point and should
 not have given advice on matters about which we agree before instructing us on the points
 about which we disagree. I, at all events, am justified by a twofold motive in devoting
 most of my attention to these points: first and foremost, in order that some good may come
 of it, and that we may put an end to our mutual rivalries and unite in a war against the
 barbarian; and, secondly, if this is impossible, in order that I may show who they are that stand in
 the way of the happiness of the Hellenes, and that all may be made to see that even as in
 times past Athens justly held the sovereignty
 of the sea, so now she not unjustly lays claim to the hegemony. This claim was made good two years later when the new confederacy was formed.
 See General Introd. p. xxxvii. The Greek word “hegemony”—leadership, supremacy—is often
 used in the particular sense of acknowledged headship of confederated states, as
 here.