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And, mark you, it will be possible for us to cut off from the region of Thrace enough land1 so that we shall not only have abundance ourselves but shall also be able to furnish adequate means of subsistence to those of the Hellenes who are in need and, because of their poverty, are now wandering from place to place.2 For where Athenodorus3 and Callistratus,4 the one a private, the other an exile, have been able to found cities, surely we could gain possession of many such places if we so desired. And those who claim the right to stand at the head of the Hellenes ought to become leaders of such enterprises much rather than of war and of hireling armies,5 which at the present time are the objects of our ambition.
1 This was done in 353 when the Athenians captured Sestos and settled colonists in this territory. See Dio. Sic. 16.34.3.
2 For these wandering refugees and the problem they presented see Isoc. 5.120 and note.
3 An Athenian citizen, he was a private in the sense that he had no official post. He was a free-lance captain of mercenaries who took service in Persia and later in the Thracian Chersonnese. What colony he founded is not known.
4 An Athenian orator who had much to do with the formation of the New Naval League, he was charged with treason and retired into exile to Thrace, where he had a part in the recolonization of Datus.
5 See Isoc. 8.44-46.
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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