[318]
Have they not taunted the most illustrious of the Athenians—the men who were the best able to benefit the city—with oligarchical and Lacedaemonian sympathies,1 and never ceased until they have driven them to become in fact what they were charged with being?2 Have they not by ill-treating our allies, by lodging false complaints against them,3 by stripping the best of them of their possessions—have they not so disaffected them that they have revolted against us and craved the friendship and alliance of the Lacedaemonians?
1 The Athenian democracy since the days of Cleisthenes lived in continual fear of revolution. There remained a strong oligarchical party, supported by Sparta, and it was always easy to catch the ear of the Athenian demos by accusing anyone of oligarchical or Spartan sympathies. Cf. Isoc. 8.133.
2 Is he thinking particularily of Alcibiades?
3 Cf. Isoc. 12.13 and 142.
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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