68
To enhance the greatness of Greece they had the courage, not merely to imperil themselves for their own preservation, but also to die for their enemies’ freedom: for they fought the allies of the Lacedaemonians for the freedom of those allies. Had they conquered, they deemed their foes worthy of obtaining equal rights: in their misfortune they settled an inheritance of slavery on the peoples of the Peloponnese.The Athenian’s object in these operations was to check the expansive policy of Sparta by striking at her allies in the Peloponnese. Corinth was the center of the struggle.
69
Now in such a plight as theirs, life was miserable, death desirable. But these men, both in their life and after their death, are enviable; for they were first trained in the excellences of their ancestors, and then in manhood they preserved that ancient fame intact and displayed their own prowess.
70
For the benefits that they have conferred on their own native land are many and splendid; they restored the broken fortunes of others, and kept the war at a distance from their own country.I.e., in the territory of Corinth. They have closed their lives with a death that befits true men, for thus they repaid their native land for their nurture and bequeathed sorrow to those who reared them.
