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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: allied states[2] could not be avoided; I set myself to discover
whether by any manner of means it were possible for the citizens of
Athens to be supported solely from the soil of Attica itself, which
was obviously the most equitable solution. For if so, herein lay, as I
believed, the antidote at once to their own poverty and to the feeling
of suspicion with which they are regarded by the rest of Hellas.
[2] Lit. "the cities," i.e. of the alliance, {tas summakhidas}.
I had no sooner begun my investigation than one fact presented itself
clearly to my mind, which is that the country itself is made by nature
to provide the amplest resources. And with a view to establishing the
truth of this initial proposition I will describe the physical
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