142
Therefore, in generations yet to come, no one, no matter how surpassing his genius, will ever be in a position to do so great a thing. Yes, and speaking of those who lived before your time, I could show that their deeds are excelled by the things which you have even now accomplished, in no specious sense but in very truth; for since you have overthrown more nations than any of the Hellenes has ever taken cities, it would not be hard for me to prove, comparing you with each of them in turn, that you have accomplished greater things than they.
143
But I have deliberately abstained from this mode of comparison, and for two reasons: because some writers employ it in season and out of season, and also because I am unwilling to represent those whom the world regards as demigods as of less worth than men who are now living.
144
Ponder well the fact (to touch upon examples from the distant past) that while no man, whether poet or writer of prose, would applaud the wealth of Tantalus, or the rule of Pelops, or the power of Eurystheus, all the world, with one accord, would praise—next to the unrivalled excellence of Heracles and the goodness of Theseus—the men who marched against Troy and all others who have proved to be like them.
145
And yet we know that the bravest and most famous of them held their sway in little villages and petty islands; nevertheless they left behind them a name which rivals that of the gods and is renowned throughout the world. For all the world loves, not those who have acquired the greatest power for themselves alone, but those who have shown themselves to be the greatest benefactors of Hellas.
