Laudator Temporis Acti

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 10.38.2 (tr. Earnest Cary):

For their brilliancy does not lie in arms, but in words, nor is their power exerted against their enemies, but against their friends; and they do not regard the commonwealth in which they dwell as belonging to all alike, but as their own private property...

οὐ γάρ ἐστιν αὐτῶν ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις ἡ λαμπρότης, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τοῖς λόγοις, οὐδὲ κατὰ τῶν ἐχθρῶν τὸ δυνάμενον, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τῶν φίλων· οὐδ᾽ ἡγοῦνται κοινὴν οἰκεῖν πόλιν, σφῶν δ᾽ αὐτῶν ἰδίαν...

φίλων codd.: φιλίων C.G. Cobet, Observationes Criticae et Palaeographicae ad Dionysii Halicarnassensis Antiquitates Romanas (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1877), p. 196

Id. 10.38.2-3:

I say nothing of the other insults, small and great, which they continue to heap upon us, as you all know; but they have gone so far in their arrogance that they forbid any one of us even to utter a free word in behalf of our country or even to open our mouths.

οἵ γε — τὰ μὲν ἄλλα, ὅσα ὑβρίζοντες ἡμᾶς μικρὰ καὶ μείζω διατελοῦσιν, ὡς ἅπαντες ἐπίστασθε, σιωπῶ, — ἀλλ᾽ εἰς τοῦτο προεληλύθασιν ὑπερηφανίας, ὥστ᾽ οὐδὲ φωνὴν ἀξιοῦσί τινα ἡμῶν ἀφιέναι περὶ τῆς πατρίδος ἐλευθέραν οὐδὲ διᾶραι τὸ στόμα.