Against Leocrates (105-109)

Mark how the men who lived at Athens then excelled in public, and in private life; so greatly that when in days gone by the Spartans, so renowned for courage, were at war with the Messenians the god advised them to take a leader from us; for so they would defeat their enemies. And yet if the god decided that the leaders sent from Athens were better than the two descendants of Heracles who in succession reign at Sparta, must we not conclude that nothing could surpass the valor of our ancestors?

Does any Greek not know that they took Tyrtaeus from our city[*] to be their leader and with him defeated their enemies and established their system of training for the young, thus wisely providing for the immediate danger and for their whole future too? For Tyrtaeus left them elegiac poems by his own hand, and through listening to these they are trained to be brave.

Though they have no regard for other poets, they valued his works so highly that they passed a law which provides that their men, after taking the field, shall be summoned to the king’s tent to hear the verses of Tyrtaeus all together, holding that this of all things would make them most ready to die for their country. It will be profitable for you to hear these elegiac verses too, that you may know what sort of conduct brought men fame among the Spartans.[*]

Nobly comes death to him who in the van

Fighting for fatherland has made his stand.

Shame and despite attend the coward’s flight,

Who, leaving native town and fruitful land,

Wanders, a homeless beggar, with his kin,

True wife, old father, mother, tender child.

Unwelcome will he be where’er he goes,

Bowed dawn with hardship and by want defiled.

Bringing his house dishonor, he belies

His noble mien, a prey to fear and shame.

Thus roams the waif unpitied and unloved,

He and the line that after bears his name.

Be stalwart then. Think not of life or limb;

Shielding our land and children let us die.

Youths, brave the fight together. Be not first

To yield to craven cowardice and fly.

Make large your hearts within you. Undismayed

Engage in battle with grown men. Be bold;

And standing fast forsake not those whose feet

No longer keep their swiftness. Guard the old.

For shame it is to see an elder fall,

Down in the forefront, smitten in the strife,

Before the youths, with grey beard, hair grown white,

To breathe out in the dust his valiant life,

Clasping his bloody groin with clinging hands,

(Fit sight indeed to kindle wrath and shame!)

His body bared. But those whom youth’s sweet flower

Adorns unfaded nothing can defame.

Honor of men is theirs, in life, and women’s love;

Fair are they too when in the van laid low.

Then clench your teeth and, with both feet astride,

Firm planted on the ground withstand the foe.

They are fine lines, gentlemen, and a lesson too for those who wish to heed them. Such was the courage of the men who used to hear them that they disputed with our city for supremacy; no matter for surprise, since the most gallant feats had been performed by either people. Your ancestors defeated the barbarians who first set foot in Attica, demonstrating clearly the superiority of valor over wealth and courage over numbers. The Spartans took the field at Thermopylae, and, though their fortune was less happy, in bravery they far surpassed all rivals.

And so over their graves a testimony to their courage can be seen, faithfully engraved for every Greek to read: to the Spartans:

Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,

That here obedient to their laws we lie.

Athenians, guarding Greece, subdued in fight

At Marathon the gilded Persians’ might.

Dic, hospes, Spartae nos te hic vidisse iacentes

dum sanctis patriae legibus obsequimur.