[97]
Lycurgus did well to call Athena and the Mother of the gods to witness. But I
will invoke your ancestors and the virtues of your ancestors, whose memory time
has not effaced. It is right that I should do so; for their policy was not to
lend themselves to cooperation with the worst of rascals and false accusers, not
to foster the mutual jealousy that lurks within doors, but to honor those public
and private men who were wise and good, and to loathe and chastise those who
were wicked and unscrupulous; and that was how they all became competitors in
the rivalry of noble deeds.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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