9
We also, men of Athens, held these views, when we had command over the Greeks; and we deemed it a wise course to suffer our land to be ravaged without feeling obliged to fight in its defence. For our interest lay in neglecting a few things in order to conserve many advantages. But today, when the fortune of battle has deprived us of all these, and our native land is all that is left to us, we know that only this venture holds out hopes of our deliverance.
10
But surely we ought to remember that heretofore, when we have gone to the support of others who were victims of injury, we have set up many a trophy over our foes on alien soil, and so ought now to act as valiant defenders of our country and of ourselves: let us trust in the gods, and hope that they will stand for justice on the side of the injured.
11
Strange indeed would it be, men of Athens, if after fighting the Lacedaemonians, in the time of our exile, to achieve our return, we should take to flight, when we have returned, to avoid fighting! And will it not be shameful if we sink to such a depth of baseness that, whereas our ancestors risked their all merely for the freedom of their neighbors, you do not dare even to make war for your own?
