[200]
Or take Perdiccas, who
was reigning in Macedonia at the time
of the Persian invasion, and who destroyed the Persians on their retreat from
Plataea, and made the defeat of
the King irreparable. They did not resolve that any man should be liable to
seizure who killed Perdiccas, the man who for our sake had provoked the enmity
of the great King; they gave him our citizenship, and that was all. The truth is
that in those days to be made a citizen of Athens was an honor so precious in the eyes of the world that,
to earn that favour alone, men were ready to render to you those memorable
services. Today it is so worthless that not a few men who have already received
it have wrought worse mischief to you than your declared enemies.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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