For most of the Hellenic cities, in memory of our ancient services, send us each year the
 first-fruits of the harvest, and those who neglect to do so have often been admonished by
 the Pythian priestess to pay us our due portion of their crops and to observe in relation
 to our city the customs of their fathers. This custom is
 attested by inscriptions. See full discussion of it in Preller, Griech.
 Mythol. i. p. 773. And about what, I should like to know, can we more
 surely exercise our faith than about matters as to which the oracle of Apollo speaks with
 authority, many of the Hellenes are agreed, and the words spoken long ago confirm the
 practice of today, while present events tally with the statements which have come down
 from the men of old? But apart from these considerations, if we waive all this and carry our inquiry back to
 the beginning, we shall find that those who first appeared upon the earth did not at the
 outset find the kind of life which we enjoy to-day, but that they procured it little by
 little through their own joint efforts. for this view of
 the gradual progress of civilization see Xenophanes, Fr. 18 Diels; Aesch. PB 447 ff. ; Eur. Supp. 201
 ff. ; Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. pp. 60, 236, 542, 771, 813, 931;
 and Lucretius’s elaborate picture, v. 780 ff. Whom, then, must we think the most
 likely either to have received this better life as a gift from the gods or to have hit
 upon it through their own search? Would it not be those who are admitted by all men to have been the first to exist, to be
 endowed with the greatest capacity for the arts, and to be the most devoted in the worship
 of the gods? And surely it is superfluous to attempt to show how high is the honor which
 the authors of such great blessings deserve; for no one could find a reward great enough
 to match the magnitude of their achievements. This much, then, I have to say about that service to humanity which is the greatest, the
 earliest, and the most universal in its benefits. But at about the same time, our city,
 seeing the barbarians in possession of most of the country, while the Hellenes were
 confined within a narrow space and, because of the scarcity of the land, were conspiring
 and making raids against each other, and were perishing, some through want of daily
 necessities, others through war, —our city, I say, was not content to let these things be as they were, but sent out
 leaders to the several states, who, enlisting the neediest of the people, and placing
 themselves at their head, overcame the barbarians in war, founded many cities on either
 continent, settled colonies in all the islands, and saved both those who followed them and
 those who remained behind;