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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: only until they gained a victory over them, and not because of the private
anger of the state destroy the common interest of Hellas; but that with
barbarians they should war to the death. Worthy of praise are they also
who waged this war, and are here interred; for they proved, if any one
doubted the superior prowess of the Athenians in the former war with the
barbarians, that their doubts had no foundation--showing by their victory
in the civil war with Hellas, in which they subdued the other chief state
of the Hellenes, that they could conquer single-handed those with whom they
had been allied in the war against the barbarians. After the peace there
followed a third war, which was of a terrible and desperate nature, and in
this many brave men who are here interred lost their lives--many of them
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