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[3] It would be for nothing, then, that we possess the greatest number of seafaring men in Hellas, if we Athenians yield our command to Syracusans,—we who can demonstrate the longest lineage of all and who alone among the Greeks have never changed our place of habitation;1 of our stock too was the man of whom the poet Homer says that of all who came to Ilion, he was the best man in ordering and marshalling armies.2 We accordingly cannot be reproached for what we now say. ”

1 Most Greek populations had traditionally immigrated into their present localities from elsewhere; but the Athenians had no such tradition; their writers often dwell on the fact with pride.

2 Menestheus: Hom. Il. 2.552.

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