Eteonicus the Spartan, Adimantus the Corinthian and the Aeginetan fleet intended, under cover of night, to seek safety for themselves.There are at least two mistakes in this account. (1) The Spartan general was Eurybiadas. (2) The Aeginetans supported the Athenians’ policy, since a withdrawal to the isthmus of Corinth would have entailed the surrender of their island. See Hdt. 8.74. Even the Athenian claim that Adimantus wished, or as Herodotus (Hdt. 8.94) records it, actually attempted, to flee is now regarded as a misrepresentation of the fact that the Corinthians were dispatched before the battle to oppose the Egyptian ships which had blocked the western end of the bay. 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,Alexander of Macedon was conquered by Mardonius in 492 B.C. This account of him does not tally with that of Herodotus (Hdt. 8.136) in which he is portrayed as a friend of the Athenians who, though pressed into the service of Persia, only visited them after Salamis to offer favorable terms and was not nearly stoned to death. The only stoning described by Herodotus was the execution of a certain Lycidas who proposed that the Athenians should accept terms from Persia (Hdt. 9.5). 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.Estimates of other orators range from 73 years (Dem. 9.23) to 65 years (Isoc. 12.56), but in view of the inaccuracy of Lycurgus on historical matters it does not seem necessary to accept Taylor’s suggestion to read seventy instead of ninety. The maximum possible length for the period would be 85 years, from the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. to that of Aegospotami in 405. 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.Lycurgus seems to be referring in exaggerated terms to the campaign in which the Athenians won a naval victory off Cyprus (qv. Thuc. 1.112). That he connects it with the battle of the Eurymedon which took place some eighteen years earlier (c. 467 B.C.) need not surprise us, in view of his other inaccuracies (cf. Lyc. 1.62 and Lyc. 1.70). The agreement in question is the so-called Peace of Callias (c. 448 B.C.), about which nothing certain is known. His account of the sea limit agrees substantially with that of other orators (e.g. Isoc. 12.59; Dem. 19.273), but the old triumphs over Persia were exaggerated in the fourth century and the statement that the Asiatic Greeks were guaranteed autonomy is certalnly false.

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.