(Here then you have the genealogy of the house of Pelops, which endured for barely three generations. But the story of our family began with Claudius; then its supremacy ceased for a short time, till your two grandfathers succeeded the throne. And your mother’s father(229) governed Rome and Italy and Libya besides, and Sardinia and Sicily, an empire not inferior certainly to Argos and Mycenae. Your father’s father(230) ruled the most warlike of all the tribes of Galatia,(231) the Western Iberians(232) and the islands that lie in the Ocean,(233) which are as much larger than those that are to be seen in our seas as the sea that rolls beyond the pillars of Heracles is larger than the inner sea.(234) These countries your grandfathers entirely cleared of our foes, now joining forces for a campaign, when occasion demanded, now making separate expeditions on their own account, and so they annihilated the insolent and lawless barbarians on their frontiers. These, then, are the distinctions that they won. Your father inherited his proper share of the Empire with all piety and due observance, waiting till his father reached his appointed end. Then he freed from intolerable slavery the remainder, which had sunk from empire to tyranny, and so governed the whole, appointing you and your brothers, his three sons, as his colleagues. Now can I fairly compare your house with the Pelopids in the extent of their power, the length of their dynasty, or the number of those who sat on the throne? Or is that really foolish, and must I instead go on to describe your wealth, and admire your cloak and the brooch that fastens it, the sort of thing on which even Homer loved to linger? Or must I describe at length the mares of Tros that numbered three thousand, and) ἕλος κάτα βουκολέοντο, [C] (“pastured in the marsh‐meadow”)(235) καὶ τὰ φώρια τὰ ἐντεῦθεν; ἢ τοὺς Θρᾳκίους ἵππους εὐλαβησόμεθα λευκοτέρους μὲν τῆς χιόνος, θεῖν δὲ ὠκυτέρους τῶν χειμερίων πνευμάτων, καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἅρματα; καὶ ἔχομέν σε ἐν τούτοις ἐπαινεῖν, οἰκίαν τε οἶμαι τὴν Ἀλκίνου καὶ τὰ τοῦ Μενέλεω δώματα καταπληξάμενα καὶ τὸν τοῦ πολύφρονος Ὀδυσσέως παῖδα καὶ τοιαῦτα ληρεῖν ἀναπείσαντα τοῖς σοῖς παραβαλεῖν ἀξιώσομεν, [D] μὴ ποτε ἄρα ἔλασσον ἔχειν ἐν τούτοις δοκῇς, καὶ οὐκ ἀπωσόμεθα τὴν φλυαρίαν; ἀλλ᾽ ὅρα μή τις ἡμᾶς μικρολογίας καὶ ἀμαθίας τῶν ἀληθῶς καλῶν γραψάμενος ἕλῃ. οὐκοῦν ἀφέντας χρὴ τοῖς Ὁμηρίδαις τὰ τοιαῦτα πολυπραγμονεῖν ἐπὶ τὰ τούτων ἐγγυτέρω πρὸς ἀρετήν, καὶ ὧν μείζονα ποιεῖ προμήθειαν, σώματος ῥώμης καὶ τῆς ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις ἐμπειρίας, θαρροῦντας(236) ἰέναι.