You can see at once from this instance best of all how much milder and more moderate we were in our supervision over the affairs of the Hellenes, but you can see it also from what I shall now say. The Spartans remained at the head of Hellas hardly ten years,Isocrates elsewhere views the Spartan supremacy as lasting from the end of the Peloponnesian War, 405-404 B.C., to the battle of Leuctra, 371 B.C. See Isoc. 5.47. But later in Isoc. 5.63-64 he speaks of Conon’s naval victory at the battle of Cnidus, 394 B.C., as the end of the Spartan rule, since it re-established the maritime influence of Athens. The latter is the version followed here. It is reasonable to say that Sparta’s supremacy by sea ceased with the battle of Cnidus and her supremacy by land with Leuctra. while we held the hegemony without interruption for sixty-five years.See Isoc. 4.106, note. And yet it is known to all that states which come under the supremacy of others remain loyal for the longest time to those under which they suffer the least degree of oppression.

Now both Athens and Lacedaemon incurred the hatred of their subjects and were plunged into war and confusion, but in these circumstances it will be found that our city, although attacked by all the Hellenes and by the barbarians as well, was able to hold out against them for ten years,The last decade of the Peloponnesian War, from what he terms the Decelean War, 413 B.C. (see Isoc. 8.37, 84, note.), to the fall of Athens 404-403 B.C. while the Lacedaemonians, though still the leading power by land, after waging war against the Thebans alone and being defeated in a single battle,Leuctra, 371 B.C. were stripped of all the possessions which they had held and involved in misfortunes and calamities which were very similar to these which overtook ourselves.See Isoc. 8.105.

More than that, our city recovered her power in less years than it took to overthrow it, while the Spartans after their defeat at Leuctra have not been able even in a period many times as long to regain the position from which they fell, but are even nowUnder the Peace of Antalcidas. See Isoc. 4.115, note. no better off than they were then.

Again, I must set forth how these two cities demeaned themselves toward the barbarians;Compare the treatment of this topic in Isoc. 4.100-132. for this still remains to be done. In the time of our supremacy, the barbarians were prevented from marching with an army beyond the Halys riverSee Isoc. 4.144. and from sailing with their ships of war this side of Phaselis,See Isoc. 4.118, Isoc. 7.80, note. but under the hegemony of the Lacedaemonians not only did they gain the freedom to march and sail wherever they pleased, but they even became masters over many Hellenic states.

Well then, does not the city which made the nobler and prouder covenants with the Persian king, which brought to pass the most and the greatest injuries to the barbarians and benefits to the Hellenes, which, furthermore, seized from her foes the sea-coast of Asia and much other territory besides and appropriated it to her allies,