Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/147

 ISOCRATES

ON THE UNION OF GREECE TO RESIST PERSIA

(380 B.C.)

is confessed indeed that our state is the most ancient and the greatest, and the most celebrated among all men; and the foundation being thus glorious, on account of what follows these it is still more befitting that we should be honored. For we inhabit this city, not having expelled others, nor having found it deserted, nor collected promiscuously from many nations, but we are of such honorable and genuine birth that we continue for all time possessing this land from which we were born, being sprung from the soil, and being able to call our city by the same names as our nearest relations, for we alone of all the Greeks have a right to call the same—nurse and fatherland and mother. And yet it is right that 89