“Nothing sweeter than one’s native land”Odyss. 9, 34 is already a commonplace. If nothing is sweeter, then is anything more holy and divine? Truly of all that men count holy and divine their native land is cause ‘and teacher, in that she bears, nurtures and educates them. To be sure, many admire cities for their size, their splendour and the magnificence of their public works, but everyone loves his own country; and even among men completely overmastered by the lust of the eye, no one is so misguided as to be forgetful of it because of the greater number of wonders in other countries.

Therefore a man who prides himself on being citizen of a prosperous state does not know, it seems to me, what sort of honour one should pay his native land, and such an one would clearly take it ill if his lot had fallen in a less pretentious place. For my part I prefer to honour the mere name of native land. In attempting to compare states, it is proper, of course, to investigate their size and beauty and the abundance of their supplies; but when it is a question of choosing between them, nobody would choose the more splendid and give up his own. He would pray that it too might be as prosperous as any, but would choose it, no matter what it was. Upright children and good fathers do just the same thing. A lad of birth and breeding would not honour anyone else above his father, and a father would not neglect his son and cherish some other lad. In fact, fathers, influenced by their affection, give their sons so much more than their due that they think them the best-looking, the tallest and the most accomplished in every way. One who does not judge his son in this spirit does not seem to me to have a father’s eyes.

In the first place, then, the name of fatherland is closer to one’s heart than all else, for there is nothing closer than a father. If one pays his father proper honour, as law and nature direct, then one should honour his fatherland still more, for his father himself belonged to if and his father’s father and all their forbears, and the name of father goes back until it reaches the father-gods.

Even the gods have countries that they rejoice in, and although they watch over all the abodes of man, deeming that every land and every sea is theirs, nevertheless each honours the place in which he was born above all other states. Cities are holier when they are homes of gods, and islands more divine if legends are told of the birth of gods in them. Indeed, sacrifices are accounted pleasing to the gods when one goes to their native places to perform the ceremony. If, then, the name of native land is in honour with the gods, should it not be far more so with mankind?

Each of us had his first sight of the sun from his native land, and so that god, universal though he be, is nevertheless accounted by everyone a home-god, because of the place from which he saw him first. Moreover, each of us began to speak there, learning first to talk his native dialect, and came to know the gods there. If a man’s lot has been cast in such a land that he has required another for his higher education, he should still be thankful for these early teachings, for he would not have known even the meaning of “state” if his country had not taught him that there was such a thing.