117
Nevertheless, although they were not blind to any of the things which I have mentioned, they considered that it was both advantageous and becoming to a state so great in size and reputation to bear with all difficulties rather than with the rule of the Lacedaemonians. For having the choice between two policies, neither of them ideal, they considered it better to choose to do injury to others rather than to suffer injury themselves and to rule without justice over others rather than, by seeking to escape that reproach, to be subject unjustly to the Lacedaemonians—
118
a course which all sensible men would prefer and desire for themselves,This cynicism accords ill with his plea for justice as a rule of conduct for states in Isoc. 8.28 ff., where he approaches the Platonic ideal that it is better to suffer than to do wrong (Plat. Gorg. 46c ff.). Here Isocrates inclines, for once, to the “practical” view of Demosthenes; that if all other states made justice the basis of their foreign policy it would be shameful for Athens not to observe it; but in a world where all other states are seeking the power to do injustice, for Athens alone to be governed by that ideal to her disadvantage would be “not justice but cowardice.” See Dem. 15.28-29. albeit a certain few of those who claim to be wise men, were the question put to them, would not accept this view. These, then, are the reasons—I have perhaps gone into them at undue length—but, in any case, these are the reasons why they adopted the polity which is criticized by some in place of the polity which is commended by all.
119
I shall now proceed to speak about the polity which I took for my subject and about our ancestors, going back to the early times when neither the word oligarchy nor the word democracy was as yet in our speech, but when monarchies governed both the barbaric races and all the Hellenic states.
