My Native Land (3-4)

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?