And now Greece ceased to produce a stock of distinguished men.
Miltiades the son of Cimon, who defeated the barbarians that landed
at Marathon, and checked the Persian host, was the first public
benefactor of Greece, and Philopœmen the son of Craugis the last. For
those who before Miltiades had displayed conspicuous valour, (as Codrus
the son of Melanthus, and the Spartan Polydorus, and the Messenian
Aristomenes), had all clearly fought for their own nation and not for
all Greece. And after Miltiades Leonidas (the son of Anaxandrides) and
Themistocles (the son of Neocles) expelled Xerxes from Greece, the
latter by his two sea-fights, the former by the action at Thermopylæ.
And Aristides the son of Lysimachus, and Pausanias the son of
Cleombrotus, who commanded at Platæa, were prevented from being called
benefactors of Greece, the latter by his subsequent crimes, the former
by his laying tribute on the Greek islanders, for before Aristides
all the Greek dominions were exempt from taxation. And Xanthippus
the son of Ariphron, in conjunction with Leotychides king of Sparta,
destroyed the Persian fleet off Mycale, and Cimon did many deeds to
excite the emulation of the Greeks. As for those who won the greatest
renown in the Peloponnesian war, one might say that they with their
own hands almost ruined Greece. And when Greece was already in pitiful
plight, Conon the son of Timotheus and Epaminondas the son of Polymnis
recovered it somewhat, the former in the islands and maritime parts,
the latter by ejecting the Lacedæmonian garrisons and governors inland,
and by putting down the decemvirates. Epaminondas also made Greece
more considerable by the addition of the well-known towns of Messene
and the Arcadian Megalopolis. I consider also Leosthenes and Aratus
the benefactors of all Greece, for Leosthenes against the wishes of
Alexander brought back safe to Greece in ships 50,000 Greeks who had
served under the pay of Persia: as for Aratus I have already touched
upon him in my account of Sicyon.
And the following is the inscription on Philopœmen at Tegea. “Spread
all over Greece is the fame and glory of the Arcadian warrior
Philopœmen, as wise in the council-chamber as brave in the field, who
attained such eminence in war as cavalry leader. Two trophies won he
over two Spartan tyrants, and when slavery was growing he abolished it.
And therefore Tegea has erected this statue to the high souled son of
Craugis, the blameless winner of his country’s freedom.”