[13] Or, "coppert."

[14] Reading {ekei}. For this corrupt passage see L. Dindorf, ad.
loc.; also Boeckh, "P. E. A." I. ix. p. 55. Perhaps (as my friend
Mr. J. R. Mozley suggests) the simplest supposition is to suppose
that there is an ellipsis before {e ou khresontai te thalatte}:
thus, "Besides which they will not suffer their antagonists to
transport goods to countries outside Attica; they must yield, or
they shall not have the use of the sea."

[15] {lobasthai}. This "poetical" word comes to mean "harry,"
"pillage," in the common dialect.

There is just one thing which the Athenians lack. Supposing that they
were the inhabitants of an island,[16] and were still, as now, rulers
of the sea, they would have had it in their power to work whatever
mischief they liked, and to suffer no evil in return (as long as they
kept command of the sea), neither the ravaging of their territory nor
the expectation of an enemy's approach. Whereas at present the farming
portion of the community and the wealthy landowners are ready[17] to
cringe before the enemy overmuch, whilst the People, knowing full well
that, come what may, not one stock or stone of their property will
suffer, nothing will be cut down, nothing burnt, lives in freedom from
alarm, without fawning at the enemy's approach. Besides this, there is
another fear from which they would have been exempt in an island home
--the apprehension of the city being at any time betrayed by their
oligarchs[18] and the gates thrown open, and an enemy bursting
suddenly in. How could incidents like these have taken place if an
island had been their home? Again, had they inhabited an island there
would have been no stirring of sedition against the people; whereas at