[86]
for when the Persians landed in Attica the Athenians did not wait for their allies, but, making the common war their private cause, they marched out with their own forces alone to meet an enemy who looked with contempt upon the whole of Hellas—a mere handful against thousands upon thousands1—as if they were about to risk the lives of others, not their own;2 the Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, no sooner heard of the war in Attica than they put all else aside and came to our rescue, having made as great haste as if it had been their own country that was being laid waste.
1 The Athenians at Marathon were reckoned at ten thousand, the Persians at about two hundred thousand.
2 Echoed from Thuc. 1.70.
Isocrates. Isocrates with an English Translation in three volumes, by George Norlin, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1980.
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