Am I then to touch upon their education, and, as other speakers often do, remind you how as children they were reared and trained in strict self-discipline? None of us, I think, is unaware that our aim in training children is to convert them into valiant men; and that men who have proved of exceptional courage in war were well brought up in childhood needs no stressing.

The simplest course, I think, will be to tell you of their courage under arms, revealing them as authors of many benefits conferred upon their country and the rest of Greece. First I shall take the general, as is his due.

For Leosthenes perceived that the whole of Greece was humiliated and cowed, corrupted by men who were accepting bribes from Philip and Alexander against their native countries. He realized that our city stood in need of a commander, and Greece herself of a city, able to assume the leadership, and he gave himself to his country and the city to the Greeks, in the cause of freedom.