I have gone into these matters,not without realizing that some will dare to say that I
 have here used an argument which lies beyond the scope of my subject. I, however, hold
 that never has an argument been advanced more pertinent than this to the foregoing
 discussion, neither is there any by which one can show more clearly that our ancestors
 were wiser in dealing with the greatest questions than were those who governed our city
 and the city of the Spartans after the war against Xerxes. For it will be seen that these states in the times following that war made peace with the
 barbarians, that they were bent on destroying each other and the other Hellenic states,
 that at the present time they think themselves worthy to rule over the Hellenes, albeit
 they are sending ambassadors to the King, courting his friendship and alliance; whereas
 those who governed Athens before that time did nothing of the sort, but entirely the
 opposite; for they were as firmly resolved to keep their hands off the states of Hellas as were the devout to abstain from the treasures
 stored up in the temples of the gods, conceiving that, second only to the war which we
 carry on in alliance with all mankind against the savagery of the beasts, that war is the
 most necessary and the most righteous which we wage in alliance with the Hellenes against
 the barbarians, who are by nature our foes and are eternally plotting against us. The principle is not of my invention but is deduced from the conduct of our ancestors.
 For when they saw that the other states were beset by many misfortunes and wars and
 seditions, while their own city alone was well governed, they did not take the view that
 those who were wiser and more fortunate than the rest of the world were justified in
 caring nothing about the others or in permitting those states which shared the same
 stock The reference is to Athens, an Ionian state, as
 leader of the Ionian Colonization. The looseness of structure in this discourse is shown
 by his treatment of this theme in three places, in 42 ff. and in 190 ff. as well as
 here. Cf. Isoc. 4.34-37 . with them to be destroyed,
 but rather that they were bound to take thought and adopt measures to deliver them all
 from their present misfortunes. Having determined upon this, they endeavored in the case of the less afflicted states to
 compose their quarrels by means of embassies and persuasion, but to the states which were
 more severely rent by factions they dispatched the most highly reputed of their citizens,
 who advised them regarding their present difficulties, and, associating themselves with
 the people who were unable to gain a livelihood in their own states or who had fallen
 below the requirements of the laws—a class which is generally destructive to ordered
 states See Isoc. 5.121
 ff. —, they urged these to take the field with them and to seek to improve
 the conditions of their present life;