Besides, you will find as many soldiers at your service as you wish, for such is now the state of affairs in Hellas that it is easier to get together a greater and stronger army from among those who wander in exile than from those who live under their own polities.See Isoc. 4.168 and note. But in those days there was no body of professional soldiers, and so, being compelled to collect mercenaries from the several states, they had to spend more money on bountiesCyrus gave Clearchus about ten thousand pounds with which to levy mercenaries. Xen. Anab. 1.1.9. for their recruiting agents than on pay for the troops.

And, lastly, if we should be inclined to make a careful review of the two cases and institute a comparison between you, who are to be at the head of the present expedition and to decide on every measure, and Clearchus, who was in charge of the enterprise of that day, we should find that he had never before been in command of any force whatever on either land or sea and yet attained renown from the misfortune which befell him on the continent of Asia;

while you, on the contrary, have succeeded in so many and such mighty achievements that if I were making them the subject of a speech before another audience, I should do well to recount them, but, since I am addressing myself to you, you would rightly think it senseless and gratuitous in me to tell you the story of your own deeds.

It is well for me to speak to you also about the two Kings, the one against whom I am advising you to take the field, and the one against whom Clearchus made war, in order that you may know the temper and the power of each. In the first place, the fatherArtaxerxes II., 405-359 B.C. of the present King once defeated our cityThis is inexact. He is probably thinking of the defeat of the Athenians in the Peloponnnesian War in which Sparta had the assistance of Persia; but Artaxerxes II. came to the throne in the year of the battle of Aegospotami. and later the city of the Lacedaemonians,At the battle of Cnidus with the help of Conon, 394 B.C. while this KingArtaxerxes III., 359-339 B.C. has never overcome anyone of the armies which have been violating his territory.

Secondly, the former took the whole of Asia from the Hellenes by the terms of the TreatyTreaty of Antalcidas. See Isoc. 4.115 ff., 175 ff.; while this King is so far from exercising dominion over others that he is not in control even of the cities which were surrendered to him; and such is the state of affairs that there is no one who is not in doubt what to believe—whether he has given them up because of his cowardice, or whether they have learned to despise and contemn the power of the barbarians.