We have therefore good reason to thank Euripides, because, apart from his other merits as
 a poet, he chose this subject for a play, The
 Erechtheus of Euripides is now lost. Apart from the passage quoted by
 Lycurgus, a few other fragments have been preserved, including one of 34 lines given by
 Stobaeus, Florileg . iii. 18. believing that in the conduct of
 those people the citizens would have a fine example which they could keep before them and
 so implant in their hearts a love of their country. You must hear the iambic lines,
 gentlemen of the jury, which, in the play, are spoken by the mother of the girl. You will
 find in them a greatness of spirit and a nobility worthy of Athens and a daughter of Cephisus. Speech from Euripides He wins men’s hearts who with a ready hand Confers his favors; he who in the doing Delays and falters is less generous. But I consent to give my child to die For many reasons: first there is no state I count more worthy to accept my gift Than Athens , peopled by no alien race. For we are of this soil, while other towns, Formed as by hazard in a game of draughts, Take their inhabitants from diverse parts. He who adopts a city, having left Some other town, resembles a bad peg Fixed into wood of better quality, A citizen in name but not in fact. And secondly: it is that we may guard Our country and the altars of the gods That we get children for ourselves at all. This city, though it bears a single name, Holds many people in it. Should I then Destroy all these, when it is in my power To give one girl to die on their behalf? The mere ability to count, and tell The greater from the less, convinces me That this, the ruin of one person’s home, Is of less consequence and brings less grief Than would result if the whole city fell. If I had sons at home instead of girls, When hostile flames beset the city’s walls, Should I not send them forth into the fight, Though fearing for them? May my children then Fight also, vie with men, and not become Mere shapes of vanity within the state. And yet, when mothers send their sons to war With tears, they often daunt them as they leave. I hate the women who above all else Prefer their sons to live and put this thought Before their honor, urging cowardice. But if they fall in battle they obtain A common grave and glory which they share With many others; whereas she, my child, By dying for this city will attain A garland destined solely for herself. And she will save her mother and you too And both her sisters. Is it right to scorn Honors like these? Except in nature’s way This girl whom I shall give for sacrifice To save her native land is not my own. And if the city falls, what further chance Shall I have left me to enjoy my child? So far as rests with me, all shall be saved. Let others rule in Athens ; I will be Her savior, and without my wish no man Shall harm what most concerns our common good, The ancient laws our fathers handed down. Eumolpus and his slavish Thracian train Shall set no trident in our midst or deck It round with garlands, where the olive tree And Gorgon’s golden head have been revered; Nor shall Athena meet with utter scorn. Come, citizens, and use my travail’s fruit To save yourselves and conquer, knowing well That I could never hesitate to save This city for the sake of one poor life. My country, were the love of all your sons As great as mine! You could not suffer ill, And we possessing you would live secure. Euripides 
 On these verses, gentlemen, your fathers were brought up.
 All women are by nature fond of children, but this one Euripides portrayed as loving her
 country more than her offspring and made it clear that, if women bring themselves to act
 like this, men should show towards their country a devotion which cannot be surpassed, not
 forsake it and flee, as Leocrates did, nor disgrace it before the whole of Greece . I want also to recommend Homer to you. In your fathers’
 eyes he was a poet of such worth that they passed a law that every four years at the
 Panathenaea he alone of all the poets should have his works recited The law that Homer should be recited at the festival of the Great
 Panathenaea, held in the third year of each Olympiad, may fairly safely be assigned to
 the time of the Pisistratids (c. 560 to 510 B.C.). It is not
 mentioned in connection with Pisistratus himself, though he is credited by a number of
 ancient authorities with the establishment of a definite text of Homer (cf.
 Cicero, de Orat . 3.34), but according to Plat. Hipparch. 228b , his son Hipparchus did provide for recitations at the
 festival. ; and thus they showed the Greeks their admiration for the noblest
 deeds. They were right to do so. Laws are too brief to give instruction: they merely state
 the things that must be done; but poets, depicting life itself, select the noblest actions
 and so through argument and demonstration convert men’s hearts. Thus Hector, while exhorting the Trojans to defend their country, speaks these words: Fight on unresting by the ships; and if some meet their fate By wound of dart, or battling hand to hand, then let them die. To fall in combat for your country’s sake is no disgrace; For wife and child will live unharmed, and home and plot last on, If once the Achaeans leave and sail their ships to their own land. Hom. Il. 15.494 
 These are the lines, gentlemen, to which your forefathers
 listened, and such are the deeds which they emulated. Thus they developed such courage
 that they were ready to die, not for their country alone, but for the whole of Greece as a land in whose heritage they shared. Certainly
 those who confronted the barbarians at Marathon, by defeating an army from the whole of
 Asia , won, at their own peril, security for
 every Greek alike. They gave themselves no credit for glory but valued rather conduct
 deserving of it, whereby they made themselves the champions of the Greeks and lords of the
 barbarians. Their pursuit of valor was no idle boast; they displayed it in action to the
 world.