Of this truth I might cite examples without number from the lives of individual men,
 since these are subject to the most frequent vicissitudes; but instances which are more
 important and better known to my hearers may be drawn from the experiences of our city and
 of the Lacedaemonians. As for the Athenians, after our city had been laid waste by the
 barbarians, we became, because we were anxious about the future and gave attention to our
 affairs, the foremost of the Hellenes; Athens , then a walled city, was temporarily abandoned
 by her people before the battle of Salamis , and
 destroyed by the troops of Xerxes. After the Persian Wars, she became the head of the
 Confederacy of Delos . See Isoc. 6.42 ff. , and Isoc.
 4.71-72 . whereas, when we imagined that our power was invincible, we
 barely escaped being enslaved. At the end of the
 Peloponnesian War, Athens was at the mercy
 of Sparta and the Spartan allies. The latter
 proposed that Athens be utterly destroyed
 and her citizens sold into slavery, but the Spartans refused to allow the city “which
 had done a great service to Hellas ” to be
 reduced to slavery. Xen. Hell. 2.2.19-20 . Cf. Isoc. 8.78, 105 ; Isoc. 14.32 ; Isoc. 15.319 . 
 Likewise the Lacedaemonians, after having set out in ancient times from obscure and
 humble cities, made themselves, because they lived temperately and under military
 discipline, masters of the Peloponnesus ; See Isoc. 4.61 ; Isoc. 12.253 ff. whereas later, when they grew
 overweening and seized the empire both of the sea and of the land, they fell into the same
 dangers as ourselves. The Spartan supremacy began with the
 triumph over Athens in 404 B.C. and ended with the defeat at Leuctra, 371
 B.C. See Vol I. p. 402, footnote. Cf. Isoc. 5.47 .
 After Leuctra, Athens , in her turn, saved
 Sparta from destruction. See Isoc. 5.44 and note. 
 Whoever, therefore, knowing that such great vicissitudes have taken place and that such
 mighty powers have been so quickly brought to naught, yet trusts in our present
 circumstances, is all too foolish, For the language cf.
 Isoc. 6.48 . especially since Athens is now in a much less favorable condition than
 she was at that time, while the hatred By the bitter
 “Social War.” See General Introduction p. xxxviii. of us among the Hellenes and
 the enmity In the course of the “Social War,” the Athenian
 general Chares had aided the satrap Artabazus in his revolt against Artaxerxes III. See
 Diodorus xvi. 22. of the great King, which then brought disaster to our arms,
 have been again revived. I am in doubt whether to suppose that you care nothing for the public welfare or that
 you are concerned about it, but have become so obtuse that you fail to see into what utter
 confusion our city has fallen. For you resemble men in that state of mind—you who have
 lost all the cities in Thrace , Not all the cities on the northern coast of the Aegean ( Thrace ), but those on the Chalcidian peninsula, notably Amphipolis Pydna,
 Potidaea , and Olynthus , which had fallen under the power or under
 the influence of Philip of Macedon . See Dem. 4.4 . squandered to no purpose more than a thousand
 talents on mercenary troops, Athenian forces were now
 largely made up of paid foreigners, recruited from everywhere. See Isoc. 8.44-47 ; Dem. 4.20 . 
 provoked the ill-will of the Hellenes and the hostility of the barbarians, and, as if
 this were not enough, have been compelled to save the friends of the Thebans Probably the Messenians, who had been made independent of
 Sparta by the Thebans. See Introduction to
 Isoc. 6. . Demosthenes, in his speech For the
 Megalopolitans , criticizes the Athenians for their folly in pledging
 themselves to aid the Messenians against Spartan aggression. See especially Dem. 16.9 . at the cost of losing our own allies Such powerful states as Chios , Byzantium , and
 Rhodes were lost to the Athenian Confederacy
 by the peace following the “Social War.” Of the seventy-five cities which belonged to
 the Confederacy the majority remained loyal. See Isoc.
 7.2 . ; and yet to celebrate the good news of such accomplishments we have
 twice now offered grateful sacrifices to the gods, Diodorus
 ( Dio. Sic. 16.22 ) records the celebration in Athens of the victory of Chares, supporting the
 rebellion of the Satrap Artabazus, over Artaxerxes III. See § 8, note. The occasion of
 the second celebration is not known. and we deliberate about our affairs more
 complaisantly than men whose actions leave nothing to be desired!