Now then let us consider the great generals as they approach, to whom, as they pass by, all those must rise up and pay their salutations who have never been famous for any great action, military or civil, and were never furnished with daring boldness nor purity of wisdom for such enterprises, nor initiated by the hand of Miltiades that overthrew the Medes, or of Themistocles that vanquished the Persians. This is the martial gang, at once combating with phalanxes by land, and engaging with navies by sea, and laden with the spoils of both. Give ear, Alala, daughter of War, to this same prologue of swords and spears. Hasten to death, when for your country vowed, as Epaminondas said,—for your country, your sepulchres, and your altars, throwing yourselves into most noble and illustrious combats. Their victories methinks I see approaching toward me, not dragging after them a goat or ox for a reward, nor crowned with ivy and smelling of the dregs of wine. But whole cities, islands, continents, and colonies well peopled are their rewards, being surrounded with trophies and spoils of all sorts. Whose statues and symbols of honor are Parthenons, a hundred feet in length, South-walls, houses for ships, the Propylaea, the Chersonesus, and Amphipolis. Marathon displays the victory of Miltiades, and Salamis the glory of Themistocles, triumphing over the ruins of a thousand vessels. The victory of Cimon brings away a hundred Phoenician galleys from the Eurymedon. And the victory of Cleon and Demosthenes brings away the shield of Brasidas, and the captive soldiers in chains from Sphacteria. The victory of Conon and Thrasybulus walls the city, and brings the people back at liberty from Phylae. The victory of Alcibiades near Sicily restores the languishing condition of the city; and Greece beheld Ionia raised again by the victories of Neleus and Androclus in Lydia and Caria. If you ask what benefit every one of the rest procured to the city; one will answer Lesbos, another Samos, another Cyprus, another the Pontus Euxinus, another five hundred galleys with three banks of oars, and another ten thousand talents, the rewards of fame and trophies won. For these victories the city observes public anniversary festivals, for these victories she sacrifices to the Gods; not for the victories of Aeschylus and Sophocles, not because Carcinus was victorious with his Aerope, or Astydamas with his Hector. But upon the sixth of September, even to this day, the Athenians celebrate a festival in memory of the fight at Marathon. Upon the sixteenth of the same month libations are poured in remembrance of the naval victory won by Chabrias near Naxos. Upon the twelfth they offer thanksgiving sacrifices for the recovery of their liberty. For upon that day they returned back from Phylae. The third of the same month they won the battle of Plataea. The sixteenth of April was consecrated to Diana, when the moon appeared in the full to the Greeks victorious at Salamis. The twelfth of June was made sacred by the battle of Mantinea, wherein the Athenians, when their confederates were routed and fled, alone by themselves obtained the victory and triumph over their victorious enemies. Such actions as these procured honor and veneration and grandeur to the city; for these acts it was that Pindar called Athens the support of Greece; not because she had set the fortune of the Greeks upright by the tragedies of Phrynichus and Thespis, but because (as he says) near Artemisium the Athenian youth laid the first glorious foundation of freedom; and afterwards fixing it upon the adamantine pillars of Salamis, Mycale, and Plataea, they multiplied their felicity to others.