for to the latter they left the home country—sufficient for their needs—and for the former they provided more land than they had owned since they embraced in their conquests all the territory which we Hellenes now possess.For the traditional “Ionic migration,” led by Athens, in the course of which settlements were made in Samos and Chios and in the islands of the Cyclades, in Asia Minor, and on the shores of the Black Sea, see Isoc. 12.43-44, 166, 190; Thuc. 1.2.6; Grote, (new edition), ii. pp. 21 ff. And so they smoothed the way for those also who in a later time resolved to send out colonists and imitate our city; for these did not have to undergo the perils of war in acquiring territory, but could go into the country marked out by us and settle there.

And yet who can show a leadership more ancestral than this, which had its origin before most of the cities of Hellas were founded, or more serviceable than this, which drove the barbarians from their homes and advanced the Hellenes to so great prosperity?

Nor did our city, after she had played her part in bringing to pass the most important benefits, neglect what remained to be done; on the contrary she made it but the beginning of her benefactions to find for those who were in want that sustenance which men must have who are to provide well also for their other needs; but considering that an existence limited to this alone was not enough to make men desire to live, she gave such careful thought to their remaining wants as well that of the good things which are now at the service of mankind—in so far as we do not have them from the gods but owe them to each other—there is not one in which our city has had no part, and most of them are due to her alone.

For, finding the Hellenes living without laws and in scattered abodes, some oppressed by tyrannies, others perishing through anarchy, she delivered them from these evils by taking some under her protection and by setting to others her own example; for she was the first to lay down laws and establish a polity.The tradition is probably correct that Athens was the first city to set her own house in order and so extended her influence over Greece. The creation of a civilized state out of scattered villages is attributed to King Theseus. See Isoc. 10.35; Isoc. 12.128 ff.. In Isoc. 12.151-4, Isocrates maintains that certain features of the Spartan constitution were borrowed from Athens.

This is apparent from the fact that those who in the beginning brought charges of homicide, and desired to settle their mutual differences by reason and not by violence, tried their cases under our laws.There is no evidence to bear out a literal interpretaion of this statement, but the tradition is probably right which regarded the Areopagus in Athens as the first court set up in Greece for the trial of cases of homicide. It was believed that this court was first convened to ty the case of Orestes, an alien. See Aesch. Eum. 684; Dem. 23.65 ff. Yes, and the arts also, both those which are useful in producing the necessities of life and those which have been devised to give us pleasure, she has either invented or stamped with her approval, and has then presented them to the rest of the world to enjoy.So Isoc. 12.202. Pliny Nat. Hist. 7.194, catalogues many Athenian discoveries in art. Cf. Milton, iv. 240: “Athens the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence.”