Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/153

 ISOCRATES Our citizens are at this time reconciled with all the others with whom they have been at war, and forget the hostility which has arisen, but to the inhabitants of the continent they do not feel grateful, even when they receive benefits [from them], so undying is the anger they feel toward them. And our fathers condemned many to death for favoring the Medes; and even at the present day, in their public assemblies, they make imprecations, before they transact any other business, on whomsoever of the citizens makes proposals for peace to the Persians. And the Eumolpidæ and the Heralds, in the celebration of the mysteries, on account of their hatred for them, proclaim publicly also to all other foreigners, as they do to homicides, that they are excluded from the sacred rites. And such hostile feelings do we entertain by nature toward them, that even in our legends, we occupy ourselves with most pleasure with those relating to the Trojan and Persian wars, by which it is possible to hear of their calamities. And one might finds hymns composed in consequence of the war against the foreigners, but dirges produced for us in consequence of that against the Greeks, and might find the former sung at the festivals, while we call to mind the latter in our calamities. And I think that even the poetry of Homer received greater honors, because he nobly extolled those who made war against the foreign foe: and that for this reason our ancestors wished to make his art honored, both in the  95