Page:Demosthenes (Brodribb).djvu/94

80 contrast between them, as Demosthenes elaborately points out in the following passage:—

"Mark, Athenians, what a summary contrast may be drawn between the doings in our olden time and in yours. It is a tale brief and familiar to all. Our forefathers for forty-five years took the leadership of Greece by general consent, and brought as much as ten thousand talents into the citadel; and the king of Macedonia was submissive to them, as a barbarian should be to Greeks. Many glorious trophies they erected for victories won by their own fighting on land and sea, and they are the sole people in the world who have bequeathed a renown which envy cannot hurt. Such were their merits in the affairs of Greece; now see what they were at home, both as citizens and men. Their public works are edifices and ornaments of such beauty and grandeur in temples and their consecrated furniture, that posterity has not the power to surpass them. In private they were so modest, and so attached to the principles of our constitution, that whoever knows the style of house which Aristides had or Miltiades, and the illustrious of that day, perceives it to be no grander than those of their neighbours. Their politics were not for money-making; each felt it his duty to exalt the commonwealth. By a conduct honourable among the Greeks, pious to the gods, brother-like among themselves, they justly attained a high prosperity.

"So fared matters with them under the statesmen I have named. How fare they with you under the