The Oratıons Of Lysıas

1. If I thought it were possible, O fellow-citizens who are assembled at this burial-place, to set forth in words the valor
of those who lie here, I should blame the men who invited me to speak about them at a few days' notice. But as all time
would not be sufficient for (the combined efforts) of all men to prepare an address adequate to their deeds, the city
seems to me, in providing for men to speak here, to make the appointment at short notice, on the supposition that the
speakers would under the circumstances meet with less adverse criticism.
2. And though my words relate to these men, the chief difficulty is not concerning their deeds, but with those who
formerly spoke upon them. For the valor of these men has been the occasion of such abundance (of composition), both
by those able to compose, and those wishing to speak, that, although many noble sentiments have been uttered about
them by men in the past, yet much has been left unsaid, and enough can yet be spoken at the present time. For they have
experienced perils on land and sea, and everywhere and among all men, who, while bewailing their own hard fate, yet
sing the praises of the courage of these men.
3. First, then, I will review the hardships of our ancestors, following the traditions. For all men should keep them too in
mind, both celebrating them in song, speaking of them in maxims about the good, honoring them at such times as this,
and instructing the living by the deeds of the dead.
4. The Amazons were once the daughters of Ares, living by the river Thermodon, and they alone of the inhabitants of
that region were armed with metal, and first of all they mounted horses, by which they unexpectedly, because of the
inexperience of their adversaries, overtook those who fled from them, and they left their pursuers far behind. So for
their spirit they were thought men, rather than women for their nature. For they seemed to surpass men in spirit rather

than to be inferior inphysique.
5. And after they had subdued many tribes and in fact enslaved the surrounding nations, they heard great reports about
this country, and for the sake of glory took the most warlike of their tribes and marched against this city. And after they
met these brave men, they came to have their souls like their nature, and with changed hearts seemed to be women
rather from their conduct in danger than from their forms.
6. And they alone were not allowed to learn from experience and to plan better for the future, and they might not go
homeward and tell of their discomfiture and the valor of our ancestors; for they died here and paid the penalty for their
rashness, and made the memory of this city immortal through valor, and rendered their own country nameless through
their defeat here. These women then, through their unjust desire for a country not their own, justly lost their own.