Against Leocrates (70-74)

Eteonicus the Spartan, Adimantus the Corinthian and the Aeginetan fleet intended, under cover of night, to seek safety for themselves.[*] Our ancestors, though they were being deserted by all the Greeks, forcibly liberated themselves and the others too by making them assist at Salamis in the naval battle against the Persians, and so triumphed unaided over both enemy and ally, in a way appropriate to each, conferring a favor upon one and defeating the other in battle. A fit comparison indeed to make with the man who escapes from his country on a four days’ voyage to Rhodes!

Do you imagine that any one of those heroes would have been ready to condone such an act? Would they not have stoned to death one who was disgracing their valor? At least they all loved their country so much that they nearly stoned to death Alexander,[*] the envoy from Xerxes, formerly their friend, because he demanded earth and water. If they thought it right to exact vengeance for a speech, are we to believe that they would not have visited with severe punishment a man who in fact delivered his country into the hands of the enemy?

It was because they held such beliefs as these that for ninety years they were leaders of the Greeks.[*] They ravaged Phoenicia and Cilicia, triumphed by land and sea at the Eurymedon, captured a hundred barbarian triremes and sailed round the whole of Asia wasting it.

And to crown their victory: not content with erecting the trophy in Salamis, they fixed for the Persian the boundaries necessary for Greek freedom and prevented his overstepping them, making an agreement that he should not sail his warships between the Cyaneae and Phaselis and that the Greeks should be free not only if they lived in Europe but in Asia too.[*]

Do you think that if they had all adopted the attitude of Leocrates and fled, any of these glorious things would have been done or that you would still be living in this country? Then, gentlemen, as you praise and honor brave men so too you must hate and punish cowards, and particularly Leocrates who showed no fear or respect towards you.