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and exhort them not to be dismayed at Philip, but to hold fast to their own liberty and the liberty of the other Greeks, assuring them t hat the people of Athens, harboring no ill will for previous mutual differences between the states, will help them with troops, money, ammunition, and arms, knowing that, while it is an honor able ambition for Greeks to dispute with each other for the hegemony, yet to be ruled by a man of alien race and to be robbed by him of that hegemony is unworthy both of the reputation of the Greeks and of the merits of their ancestors.
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Furthermore, the People of Athens regard the people of Thebes as in no way alien either in race or in nationality. They remember the services rendered by their own ancestors to the ancestors of the Thebans, for, when the sons of Heracles were dispossessed by the Peloponnesians of their paternal dominion, they restored them, overcoming in battle those who were trying to oppose the descendants of Heracles; and we harbored Oedipus and his family when they were banished; and many other notable acts of kindness have we done to the Thebans.