allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment
to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of
freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger. No,
holding that vengeance upon their enemies was more to be
desired than any personal blessings and reckoning this to be
the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to
accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance and to let
their wishes wait; and, while committing to hope the
uncertainty of final success, in the business before them
they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus
choosing to die resisting rather than to live submitting,
they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face
and, after one brief moment, while at the summit of their
fortune, escaped not from their fear but from their glory.

"So died these men as became Athenians. You, their
survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a
resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may
have a happier issue. And, not contented with ideas derived
only from words of the advantages which are bound up with
the defence of your country, though these would furnish a
valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive
to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the
power of Athens and feed your eyes upon her from day to day,
till love of her fills your hearts; and then, when all her
greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was
by courage, sense of duty and a keen feeling of honour in
action that men were enabled to win all this and that no
personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to
deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at