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 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,. 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 EuripidesHe wins men’s hearts who with a ready handConfers his favors; he who in the doingDelays and falters is less generous.But I consent to give my child to dieFor many reasons: first there is no stateI count more worthy to accept my giftThan 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 leftSome other town, resembles a bad pegFixed into wood of better quality,A citizen in name but not in fact.And secondly: it is that we may guardOur country and the altars of the godsThat we get children for ourselves at all.This city, though it bears a single name,Holds many people in it. Should I thenDestroy all these, when it is in my powerTo give one girl to die on their behalf?The mere ability to count, and tellThe greater from the less, convinces meThat this, the ruin of one person’s home,Is of less consequence and brings less griefThan 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 thenFight also, vie with men, and not becomeMere shapes of vanity within the state.And yet, when mothers send their sons to warWith tears, they often daunt them as they leave.I hate the women who above all elsePrefer their sons to live and put this thoughtBefore their honor, urging cowardice.But if they fall in battle they obtainA common grave and glory which they shareWith many others; whereas she, my child,By dying for this city will attainA garland destined solely for herself.And she will save her mother and you tooAnd both her sisters. Is it right to scornHonors like these? Except in nature’s wayThis girl whom I shall give for sacrificeTo save her native land is not my own.And if the city falls, what further chanceShall 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 beHer savior, and without my wish no manShall harm what most concerns our common good,The ancient laws our fathers handed down.Eumolpus and his slavish Thracian trainShall set no trident in our midst or deckIt round with garlands, where the olive treeAnd Gorgon’s golden head have been revered;Nor shall Athena meet with utter scorn.Come, citizens, and use my travail’s fruitTo save yourselves and conquer, knowing wellThat I could never hesitate to saveThis city for the sake of one poor life.My country, were the love of all your sonsAs 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 recitedThe 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,. 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 fateBy 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.