100
Your deliverance of the island was a generous act, but still more generously, when you had their lives and their cities at your mercy, you restored them honestly to men who had sinned against you, forgetting your wrongs where you found yourselves trusted. I pass over ten thousand instances I could cite,—battles by sea, expeditions by land, campaigns of ancient date and of our own times, in all of which Athens engaged herself for the freedom and salvation of Greece.
101
Having before my eyes the spectacle of a city in all those great enterprises ready to fight the battles of her neighbors, what advice was I to give and what policy to urge, when her deliberations in some measure concerned herself? To bear malice against men who were seeking deliverance? To search for excuses for deserting the common cause? Should I not have deserved death if even in word I had sought to tarnish our honor able traditions? In word, I say; for the deed you would never have done. Of that I am well assured, for if you so wished, what stood in your way? Was it not in your power? Were not Aeschines and his friends there to advise you?