Demosthenes Against Leptines 161

[161] Because, you will say, we are now past such expectation. ¹ I pray that we may be, Athenians. But as we are mere mortals, neither our language nor our laws should offend religious sentiment; we may both expect blessings and pray for them, but we must reflect that all things are conditioned by mortality. For the Lacedaemonians never dreamed that they would be brought to their present straits, and perhaps even the Syracusans, once a democracy, who exacted tribute from the Carthaginians and ruled all their neighbors and beat at us at sea, little thought they would fall under the tyranny of a single clerk, ² if report be true.