119
If you will go over these and similar questions in your minds, you will discover that arrogance and insolence have been the cause of our misfortunes while sobriety and self control have been the source of our blessings.See General Introd. pp. xxxii, xxxiii, Isocrates, Vol. I., L.C.L. But, while you commend sobriety in individual men and believe that those who practice it enjoy the most secure existence and are the best among your fellow citizens, you do not think it fit to make the state practice it.
120
And yet it behoves states much more than individuals to cultivate the virtues and to shun vices;Cf. Plat. Rep. 545b. for a man who is godless and depraved may die before paying the penalty for his sins, but states, since they are deathless, soon or late must submit to punishment at the hands both of men and of the gods.
121
These considerations you should bear in mind and not pay heed to those who gratify you for the moment, while caring nothing for the future, nor to those who profess to love the people, but are in fact the bane of the whole state; since in times past also when men of this character took over the supremacy of the rostrum,Obviously sarcastic: Their “supremacy” spells disaster to the state. they led the city on to such a degree of folly that she suffered the fate which I described a moment ago.
122
And indeed what is most astonishing of all in your conduct is that you prefer as leaders of the people, not those who are of the same mind as the men who made Athens great, but those who say and do the same kind of things as the men who destroyed her power; and you do this albeit knowing full well that it is not alone in making the city prosperous that good leaders are superior to the base,
