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they, it is true, have less freedom than their private citizens to do wrong,The Spartan kings were powerful in the field, but otherwise were subject to the Ephors, who could even have them put to death. See Gilbert, Greek Consitituional Antiquities pp. 46 ff. and 57 ff. yet are much more enviable than those who hold despotic power by force; for those who take the lives of despots are given the highest rewards by their fellow citizens,He has in mind the honors shown by the Athenians to the “tyrannicides,” Harmodius and Aristogeiton. whereas those Spartans who are not ready to lay down their lives for their kings in battleSee Isoc. 5.80 and Isoc. Letter 2.6. are held in greater dishonor than men who desert their post and throw away their shields.The ῥιψασπις was not only despised but suffered humiliations and penalties. In Athens, which was less rigorous than Sparta, he lost his political rights.
144
This, then, is the kind of leadership which is worth striving for. And this very position of honor which the kings of Lacedaemon have from their citizens we Athenians have it in our power to win from the Hellenes, if only they become convinced that our supremacy will be the instrument, not of their enslavement, but of their salvation.
145
My subject is not exhausted; there are many excellent things to be said upon it, but I am prompted by two considerations to stop speaking: the length of my discourse and the number of my years. But I urge and exhort those who are younger and more vigorous than I to speak and write the kind of discourses by which they will turn the greatest states—those which have been wont to oppress the rest—into the paths of virtue and justice, since when the affairs of Hellas are in a happy and prosperous condition, it follows that the state of learning and letters also is greatly improved.A somewhat academic close, but the state of affairs and the state of learning are not dissociated in his mind; “philosophy” is the salvation of the state.
