I, for my part, think that this will set a limit to human endeavor; for no other man will
 ever be able to do deeds greater than these, because among the Hellenes there will never
 be again so great an enterprise as that of leading us forward out of our innumerable wars
 into a spirit of concord; nor, among the barbarians, is it likely that so great a power
 will ever be built up again if once you shatter that which they now possess. Therefore, in generations yet to come, no one, no matter how surpassing his genius, will
 ever be in a position to do so great a thing. Yes, and speaking of those who lived before
 your time, I could show that their deeds are excelled by the things which you have even
 now accomplished, in no specious sense but in very truth; for since you have overthrown
 more nations than any of the Hellenes has ever taken cities, it would not be hard for me
 to prove, comparing you with each of them in turn, that you have accomplished greater
 things than they. But I have deliberately abstained from this mode of comparison, and for two reasons:
 because some writers employ it in season and out of season, and also because I am
 unwilling to represent those whom the world regards as demigods as of less worth than men
 who are now living. Ponder well the fact (to touch upon examples from the distant past) that while no man,
 whether poet or writer of prose, would applaud the wealth of Tantalus, or the rule of
 Pelops, or the power of Eurystheus, all the world, with one accord, would praise—next to
 the unrivalled excellence of Heracles and the goodness of Theseus—the men who marched
 against Troy and all others who have proved to
 be like them. And yet we know that the bravest and most famous of them held their sway in little
 villages and petty islands; nevertheless they left behind them a name which rivals that of
 the gods and is renowned throughout the world. For all the world loves, not those who have
 acquired the greatest power for themselves alone, but those who have shown themselves to
 be the greatest benefactors of Hellas .