BEGINNING OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 145 much our own and assured as those which we grow at home. In respeo; to training for war, we differ from our opponents (the Lacedaemonians) on several material points. First, we lay open our city as a common resort : we apply no xenelasy to exclude even an enemy either from any lesson or any spectacle, the full view of which he may think advantageous to him ; for we trust less to manosuvres and quackery than to our native bravery, for warlike efficiency. Next, in regard to education, while the La- cedsemonians, even from their earliest youth, subject themselves to an irksome exercise for the attainment of courage, we, with our easy habits of life, are not less prepared than they, to en- counter all perils within the measure of our strength. The proof of this is, that the Peloponnesian confederates do not attack us one by one, but with their whole united force ; while we, when we attack them at home, overpower for the most part all of them who try to defend their own territory. None of our enemies has ever met and contended with our entire force ; partly in consequence of our large navy, partly from our dispersion in different simultaneous land-expeditions. But when they chancs to be engaged with any part of it, if victorious, they pretend to have vanquished us all, if defeated, they pretend to have been vanquished by all. " Now, if we are willing to brave danger, just as much under an indulgent system as under constant toil, and by spontaneous courage as much as under force of law, we are gainers in the end, by not vexing ourselves beforehand with sufferings to come. yet still appearing in the hour of trial not less daring than those who toil without ceasing. " In other matters, too, as well as in these, our city deserves admiration. For we combine elegance of taste with simplicity of life, and we pursue knowledge without being enervated : l we employ wealth, not for talking and ostentation, but as a real help Thucyd. ii, 40. ^L^OKO^OI^IEV yap fisr' evre^etaf, nal <j>i%,oao<j>ovftv uvcv ^ TT^OVT^ re Ipyov pul^ov naipy % "Koyov KOfnrtJ ^pc^uefla, Kal TO irevecrdai ov% 6/zoAoyeZv TIVI alc%pdv, aAAa (JLT) diatpevysiv epyu aic^iov. The first strophe of the Chorus in Euripid. Medea, 824-841, may be compared with the tenor of this discourse of Perikles : the praises of Attica ai 3 there dwelt upon, as a country too good to receive the guilty Medea,
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