72
It was because they held such beliefs as these that for ninety years they were leaders of the Greeks.Estimates of other orators range from 73 years (Dem. 9.23) to 65 years (Isoc. 12.56), but in view of the inaccuracy of Lycurgus on historical matters it does not seem necessary to accept Taylor’s suggestion to read seventy instead of ninety. The maximum possible length for the period would be 85 years, from the battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. to that of Aegospotami in 405. They ravaged Phoenicia and Cilicia, triumphed by land and sea at the Eurymedon, captured a hundred barbarian triremes and sailed round the whole of Asia wasting it.