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for they had saved the Hellenes from destruction and had punished the barbarians so severely that the latter were well content if only they might suffer no further injury.Cf. Isoc. 7.80 and Isoc. 4.117-118. And so, because of these things, our forefathers lived in such a degree of security that the houses and establishments in the country were finer and more costly than those within the city-walls,Demosthenes contrasts the magnificence of the temples and public buildings in Athens with the unpretentiousness of private houses in the “good old days” when the house of a Miltiades or of an Aristides was no finer than any other, Dem. 3.25 ff. and many of the people never visited Athens even for the festivals, preferring to remain at home in the enjoyment of their own possessions rather than share in the pleasures dispensed by the state.
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For even the public festivals, which might otherwise have drawn many to the city, were not conducted with extravagance or ostentation, but with sane moderation, since our people then measured their well-being, not by their processions or by their efforts to outdo each other in fitting out the choruses,The training and fitting out of a chorus for a dramatic festival was one of the services (liturgies) rendered to the state by the more wealthy citizens. See Isoc. 8.128, note. Isocrates here complains of the expensive and ostentatious rivalry in such matters. See below: “garments spangled with gold.” The cost of such a service in some cases amounted to as much as five thousand drachmas. or by any such empty shows, but by the sobriety of their government, by the manner of their daily life, and by the absence of want among all their citizens. These are the standards by which one should judge whether people are genuinely prosperous and not living in vulgar fashion.
