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but that our democracy itself under the leadership of the former remained unshaken and unchanged for many years,1 whereas under the guidance of these men it has already, within a short period of time,2 been twice overthrown, and that, furthermore, our people who were driven into exile under the despots and in the time of the Thirty were restored to the state, not through the efforts of the sycophants,3 but through those leaders who despised men of that character and were held in the highest respect for their integrity.4
1 A century, from the reforms of Cleisthenes in 510 to the revolution of 411 B.C.
2 In 411 and 404 B.C.
3 False accusers, slanderers, professional blackmailers—a class of persons which sprang up like weeds in Athens after the age of Pericles. Their favorite device was to extort money by threatening or instituting law-suits. But the word was applied indiscriminately by Isocrates and others to demagogues and politicians of the opposite party. See Lafberg, Sycophancy in Athens. Cf. Aristoph. Pl. 850 ff. The term “flatterers” is used in 4.
4 Aristides restored the people after the rule of the Pisistratidae and Thrasybulus after the rule of the Thirty—both men of unblemished reputation.
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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