[47]
Those men encountered the enemy on the borders of Boeotia, to fight for the freedom of Greece. They neither rested their hopes of safety on city walls nor surrendered their lands for the foe to devastate. Believing that their own courage was a surer protection than battlements of stone, they held it a disgrace to see the land that reared them wasted. And they were right. Men do not hold their foster parents so dear as their own fathers, and so towards countries which are not their own but which have been adopted during their lifetime they feel a weaker loyalty.
Lycurgus. Minor Attic Orators in two volumes, 2, with an English translation by J. O. Burtt, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1962.
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