To Archidamus (96-100)

and when, more than all this, he would see our slaves bringing from the land which our fathers bequeathed to us first-fruits of the harvest and sacrifices greater than our own, and would hear from their lips such taunts as you would expect from men who once were subjected to the strictest bondage but now have made a treaty with their masters on terms of equality? How keenly every one of us would smart under these insults no man alive could set forth in words.

These are the things about which we must take counsel, and we must not wait to indulge our resentment until that will no longer avail us, but must consider now how we may prevent such a disaster. For it is disgraceful that we, who in former times would not allow even free men the right of equal speech, are now openly tolerating licence of speech on the part of slaves.[*]

For thus we shall give ground for the suspicion that in time past we have been nothing at all but idle boasters, that by nature we are no different from the rest of mankind, and that the sternness and dignity of manner which we cultivate is not natural, but a mere pose. Let us, therefore, give no such occasion to those who are wont to speak ill of us, but let us endeavor to confute their words by patterning our actions after those of our forefathers.

Remember the men who at Dipaea[*] fought against the Arcadians, of whom we are told that, albeit they stood arrayed with but a single line of soldiery, they raised a trophy over thousands upon thousands; remember the three hundred who at Thyrea[*] defeated the whole Argive force in battle; remember the thousand who went to meet the foe at Thermopylae,

who, although they engaged seven hundred thousand of the barbarians, did not flee nor suffer defeat, but laid down their lives on the spot where they were stationed,[*] acquitting themselves so nobly that even those who eulogize them with all the resources of art can find no praises equal to their valor.