Letter 9: To Archidamus (4-7)

Who would lack material if he wished to recount in full the tale of the courage of your entire state, and of its moderation, and its constitution established by your ancestors? How long a story would be needed to tell of your father’s wisdom, of his handling of affairs in adversity, and of that battle in Sparta[*] in which you, leading a few against many, exposed yourself to danger, and, surpassing all, proved to be the author of your city’s salvation—a deed than which no man could point to one more glorious!

For neither capture of cities nor slaughter of a multitude of the enemy is so great and so sublime as the saving of one’s fatherland from perils so dire—and no ordinary fatherland, but one so greatly distinguished for its valor. Any man who should relate these achievements, not in polished style, but simply, and without stylistic embellishment, merely telling the tale of them and speaking in random fashion, could not fail to win renown.

Now I might have spoken passably about even these matters, since I knew, in the first place, that it is easier to treat copiously in cursory fashion occurrences of the past than intelligently to discuss the future and, in the second place, that all men are more grateful to those who praise them than to those who advise them[*]—for the former they approve as being well—disposed, but the latter,

if the advice comes unbidden, they look upon as officious—nevertheless, although I was already fully aware of all these considerations, I have refrained from topics which would surely be flattering and now I propose to speak of such matters as no one else would dare to discuss, because I believe that those who make pretensions to fairness and practical wisdom should choose, not the easiest subjects, but the most arduous, nor yet those which are the sweetest to the ears of the listeners, but such as will avail to benefit, not only their own states, but also all the other Greeks. And such is the subject, in fact, to which I have fixed my attention at the present time.