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[24] and again, we know that while the Carthaginians and the Lacedaemonians, who are the best governed peoples of the world,1 are ruled by oligarchies at home, yet, when they take the field, they are ruled by kings. One might also point out that the state2 which more than any other abhors absolute rule meets with disaster when it sends out many generals,3 and with success when it wages war under a single leader.

1 Socrates and his followers idealized, in contrast to the slackness of Athens, the rigorous rule of such states as Sparta and Crete. See, for example, Plat. Crito 52e. Aristotle couples in his praise, as Isocrates here, the Spartans and the Carthaginians: Aristot. Pol. 1272b 24 ff.

2 Athens.

3 As in the disasters at Syracuse and Aegospotami.

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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    • Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.2
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