[216] For I was troubled on reading your speech by what you had said about the Lacedaemonians, but much more by my own inability to utter a single word in their defence against what you had written, accustomed as I had been at all other times to commend you. And when I found myself in this perplexity, I said the only thing I could, namely, that for this reason at least, if for no other, they deserved the gratitude of all of us, because they followed the best ways of life.