79
not that we can have any just complaint against the latter for being obdurate towards us; for they were not aggressors but on the defensive, and came to have this feeling after suffering many grievous wrongs at our hands. For who could have brooked the insolence of our fathers? Gathering together from all Hellas men who were the worst of idlers and men who had a part in every form of depravity and manning their triremes with them,Mercenaries made up the crews at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. See Thuc. 1.121. they made themselves odious to the Hellenes,Cf. Thuc. 2.9. driving into exile the best of the citizens in the other statesThe aristocratic families, in order to make room for the democratic faction. Isocrates evidently means that their property was confiscated and used to pay the mercenaries. See Thuc. 8.21. The rhetorical point is the same as in 46. and distributing their property among the most depraved of the Hellenes!
80
But if I were to make bold to go through in detail what took place in those times I might probably help you to be better advised regarding the present situation, but I should prejudice my own reputation; for you are wont to hate not so much those who are responsible for your mistakes as those who undertake to denounce them.
81
I fear, therefore, since you are of such a mind, that if I attempt to benefit you I may myself reap a poor reward. Nevertheless, I am not going to refrain entirely from saying the things which I had in mind but shall pass over the most severe and, mayhap, the most painful to you and recall to your minds only the facts by which you will recognize the folly of the men who at that time governed the city.
