Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/91

 ALCIBIADES

I

IN SUPPORT OF THE ATHENIAN EXPEDITION TO SICILY

(414 B.C.)

is both befitting, Athenians, for me, more than others, to enjoy command (for with this topic must I commence my speech, since Cleon has attacked me upon it), and at the same time, I deem myself worthy of it. For those things about which I am so assailed with clamor, confer honor on my ancestors and myself, and benefit on my country at the same time. For the Greeks considered our state to be greater than they had ever done, even beyond its actual power, through the splendor of my display as its deputy to the Olympic games (whereas they hoped before that it had been exhausted by the war); inasmuch as I entered seven chariots—a number which no private individual had ever yet entered—and gained the first prize, and was second and fourth, and provided everything else in a style worthy of my victory. For according 41