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41. "In sum it may be said both that the city is in general a school of the Grecians, and that the men here have everyone in particular his person disposed to most diversity of actions, and yet all with grace and decency. [2] And that this is not now rather a bravery of words upon the occasion than real truth, this power of the city, which by these institutions we have obtained, maketh evident. [3] For it is the only power now found greater in proof than fame, and the only power, that neither grieveth the invader when he miscarries with the quality of those he was hurt by, nor giveth cause to the subjected states to murmur as being in subjection to men unworthy. [4] For both with present and future ages we shall be in admiration for a power not without testimony but made evident by great arguments, and which needeth not either a Homer to praise it or any other such whose poems may indeed for the present bring delight, but the truth will afterwards confute the opinion conceived of the actions. For we have opened unto us by our courage all seas and lands and set up eternal monuments on all sides both of the evil we have done to our enemies and the good we have done to our friends. [5]

"Such is the city for which these men, thinking it no reason to lose it, valiantly fighting have died. And it is fit that every man of you that be left should be like minded to undergo any travail for the same.

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load focus English (1910)
load focus Greek (1942)
load focus English (Benjamin Jowett, 1881)
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