[161]
Because, you will say, we
are now past such expectation.1 I pray that we may be, Athenians. But as we are mere mortals,
neither our language nor our laws should offend religious sentiment; we may both
expect blessings and pray for them, but we must reflect that all things are
conditioned by mortality. For the Lacedaemonians never dreamed that they would
be brought to their present straits, and perhaps even the Syracusans, once a
democracy, who exacted tribute from the Carthaginians and ruled all their
neighbors and beat at us at sea, little thought they would fall under the
tyranny of a single clerk,2 if report be true.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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