71
Do you imagine that any one of those heroes would have been ready to condone such an act? Would they not have stoned to death one who was disgracing their valor? At least they all loved their country so much that they nearly stoned to death Alexander,Alexander of Macedon was conquered by Mardonius in 492 B.C. This account of him does not tally with that of Herodotus (Hdt. 8.136) in which he is portrayed as a friend of the Athenians who, though pressed into the service of Persia, only visited them after Salamis to offer favorable terms and was not nearly stoned to death. The only stoning described by Herodotus was the execution of a certain Lycidas who proposed that the Athenians should accept terms from Persia (Hdt. 9.5). the envoy from Xerxes, formerly their friend, because he demanded earth and water. If they thought it right to exact vengeance for a speech, are we to believe that they would not have visited with severe punishment a man who in fact delivered his country into the hands of the enemy?
72
It was because they held such beliefs as these that for ninety years they were leaders of the Greeks.Estimates of other orators range from 73 years (Dem. 9.23) to 65 years (Isoc. 12.56), but in view of the inaccuracy of Lycurgus on historical matters it does not seem necessary to accept Taylor’s suggestion to read seventy instead of ninety. The maximum possible length for the period would be 85 years, from the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. to that of Aegospotami in 405. They ravaged Phoenicia and Cilicia, triumphed by land and sea at the Eurymedon, captured a hundred barbarian triremes and sailed round the whole of Asia wasting it.
