τοὺς ἐφ᾽ αὑτῶν ἄνδρας, ‘their contemporaries’; cp. in Callim. 18 ἐπὶ τῶν τριάκοντα, ‘in the time of the thirty’; contrast τοὺς ἐφ᾽ αὑτοῖς (N. C. 20), ‘their successors.’
κοσμεῖν, ‘glorify.’
ἐν συνειδόσι ποιούμενοι τοὺς λόγους: cp. Thuc. ii. 36 μακρηγορεῖν ἐν εἰδόσιν οὐ βουλόμενος ἐάσω.
ταῖς ἀληθείαις: Isocr. is very fond of using the plural of abstract words.
ἐχρῶντο . . . διέκειντο, ‘in order that . . . they might have told the truth, and that the younger generation might have been more dis posed to emulate them.’ The past tense of the indicative is in final clauses after ἵνα, ὡς or ὅπως to express an unfulfilled purpose in present or past time. The principal sentence is either an unfulfilled wish or (as here) its equivalent, or an unfulfilled apodosis; cp. Soph. O.T. 1391 “τί μ᾽ οὐλαβὼν ἔκτεινας εὐθύς, ὡς ἔδειξα μήποτε κτἑ.”, ‘why did you not take and slay me at once, so that I might never have shown, &c.’
φιλοτιμοτέρως: the form of the comparative adv. in Attic Greek is usually the acc. neut. sing. but Isocr. favours the form in -ως, cp. § 21 μειζόνως, ad N. 14 ἐρρωμενεστέρως, N. C. 44 περιττοτέρως.
εὐλογήσονται: future middle with passive sense. Such forms are by no means uncommon in Attic Greek; I note four examples in a single chapter of Xenophon (Cyrop. vi. 1), viz. αὐξήσεται, ἐπιβουλεύσεται, πολιορκήσονται, ταράξονται; cp. also ad Nic. 16 ἀδικήσονται.
τούτων: gen. of the thing compared after μᾶλλον. ὧν a similar gen. after a)mei/nous.
