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And at last, before they knew it, they had filled the public burial-grounds1 with the bodies of their fellow citizens and the registers of the phratries and of the state2 with the names of those who had no claim upon the city. And you may judge of the multitude of the slain from this fact: The families of the most illustrious Athenians and our greatest houses, which survived the civil conflicts under the tyrants3 and the Persian Wars as well, have been, you will find, entirely wiped out4 under this empire upon which we set our hearts.
1 The Ceramicus.
2 Cf. Isoc. 8.50. All citizens were duly enrolled in the phratry registers, φρατορικὰ γραμματεῖα and in the state registers, kept in each township, ληξιαρχικὰ γραμματεῖα.
3 Pisitratus and his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus. See Aristot. Ath. Pol. 18.
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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