Plato Menexenus 245

And in fact, on that occasion, she proved unable to harden her heart and adhere firmly to her resolved policy of refusing to assist any in danger of enslavement against those who wronged them; 245a on the contrary she gave way and lent assistance. The Greeks she aided herself and rescued them from slavery, so that they remained free until such time as they enslaved each other once more; but to the King she could not bring herself to lend official aid for fear of disgracing the trophies of Marathon, Salamis and Plataea , but she permitted exiles only and volunteers to assist him, and thereby, beyond a doubt, she saved him. ¹ Having, then, restored her walls 245b and rebuilt her navy, she entered upon the war, since war was forced upon her, and in defence of the Persians warred against the Lacedaemonians. But the King, becoming afraid of our city when he saw that the Lacedaemonians were desisting from the naval struggle, wished to desert us; so he demanded the surrender of the Greeks in the Continent, whom the Lacedaemonians had formerly given over to him, as the price of his continuing his alliance with us and the other allies, 245c thinking that we would refuse and thus furnish him with a pretext for his desertion. Now in the case of the rest of his allies he was mistaken; for they all— including the Corinthians, Argives, Boeotians, and the rest—consented to hand them over to him, making a sworn agreement that if he would supply them with money they would hand over the Greeks in the Continent ² ; but we, and we alone, could not bring ourselves either to hand them over or to join in the agreement. So firmly-rooted and so sound is the noble and liberal character of our city, and endowed also 245d with such a hatred of the barbarian, because we are pure-blooded Greeks, unadulterated by barbarian stock. For there cohabit with us none of the type of Pelops, or Cadmus, or Aegyptus or Danaus, and numerous others of the kind, who are naturally barbarians though nominally Greeks; but our people are pure Greeks and not a barbarian blend; whence it comes that our city is imbued with a whole-hearted hatred of alien races. None the less, we were isolated once again because of our refusal to perform the dishonorable and unholy act of surrendering Greeks to barbarians. 245e And thus we found ourselves in the same position which had previously led to our military overthrow; but, by the help of God, we brought the war to a more favorable conclusion ³ than on that occasion. For we still retained our ships, our walls, and our own colonies, when we ceased from the war,—so welcome to our enemies also was its cessation.