[41]
I have said these things at the outset because in the rest of my discourse I am going to speak without reserve and with complete frankness. For suppose that a stranger from another part of the world were to come to Athens,1 having had no time to be tainted with our depravity, but brought suddenly face to face with what goes on here, would he not think that we are mad and bereft of our senses, seeing that we plume ourselves upon the deeds of our ancestors and think fit to eulogize our city by dwelling upon the achievements of their time and yet act in no respect like them but do the very opposite?
1 Cf. Isoc. 4.133.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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