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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On Revenues by Xenophon: Median war. Was it by high-handed violence, or as benefactors of the
Hellenes, that we obtained the headship of the naval forces, and the
trusteeship of the treasury of Hellas?[11] Again, when through the too
cruel exercise of her presidency, as men thought, Athens was deprived
of her empire, is it not the case that even in those days,[12] as soon
as we held aloof from injustice we were once more reinstated by the
islanders, of their own free will, as presidents of the naval force?
Nay, did not the very Thebans, in return for certain benefits, grant
to us Athenians to exercise leadership over them?[13] And at another
date the Lacedaemonans suffered us Athenians to arrange the terms of
hegemony[14] at our discretion, not as driven to such submission, but
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