[103]
But I believe that all men are of the opinion that those will prove the best leaders and champions of the Hellenes under whom in the past those who yielded obedience have fared the best. Well, then, it will be found that under our supremacy the private households grew most prosperous and that the commonwealths also became greatest. For we were not jealous of the growing states,1
1 In this and the following paragraphs we have a summing up of the spirit of the Athenian hegemony in contrast to that of the Spartan supremacy described in 115 ff. Cf. Isoc. 12.59 ff.