History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by

violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the

second like being compelled by a superior. At all events they

contrived to put up with much worse treatment than this from the Mede,

yet they think our rule severe, and this is to be expected, for the

present always weighs heavy on the conquered. This at least is

certain. If you were to succeed in overthrowing us and in taking our

place, you would speedily lose the popularity with which fear of us

has invested you, if your policy of to-day is at all to tally with the

sample that you gave of it during the brief period of your command

against the Mede. Not only is your life at home regulated by rules and

institutions incompatible with those of others, but your citizens

abroad act neither on these rules nor on those which are recognized by

the rest of Hellas.

 

“Take time then in forming your resolution, as the matter is of

great importance; and do not be persuaded by the opinions and

complaints of others to bring trouble on yourselves, but consider

the vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it.

As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances

from which neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in

the dark. It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong

end, to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter. But we

are not yet by any means so misguided, nor, so far as we can see,

are you; accordingly, while it is still open to us both to choose

aright, we bid you not to dissolve the treaty, or to break your oaths,

but to have our differences settled by arbitration according to our

agreement. Or else we take the gods who heard the oaths to witness,

and if you begin hostilities, whatever line of action you choose, we

will try not to be behindhand in repelling you.”

 

Such were the words of the Athenians. After the Lacedaemonians had

heard the complaints of the allies against the Athenians, and the

observations of the latter, they made all withdraw, and consulted by

themselves on the question before them. The opinions of the majority

all led to the same conclusion; the Athenians were open aggressors,

and war must be declared at once. But Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian

king, came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a wise and

a moderate man, and made the following speech:

 

“I have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the

experience of many wars, and I see those among you of the same age

as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune of longing for

war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its

safety. This, the war on which you are now debating, would be one of

the greatest magnitude, on a sober consideration of the matter. In a

struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours our strength is of the

same character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the different

points. But a struggle with a people who live in a distant land, who

have also an extraordinary familiarity with the sea, and who are in

the highest state of preparation in every other department; with

wealth private and public, with ships, and horses, and heavy infantry,

and a population such as no one other Hellenic place can equal, and

lastly a number of tributary allies—what can justify us in rashly

beginning such a struggle? wherein is our trust that we should rush on

it unprepared? Is it in our ships? There we are inferior; while if

we are to practise and become a match for them, time must intervene.

Is it in our money? There we have a far greater deficiency. We neither

have it in our treasury, nor are we ready to contribute it from our

private funds. Confidence might possibly be felt in our superiority in

heavy infantry and population, which will enable us to invade and

devastate their lands. But the Athenians have plenty of other land

in their empire, and can import what they want by sea. Again, if we

are to attempt an insurrection of their allies, these will have to

be supported with a fleet, most of them being islanders. What then

is to be our war? For unless we can either beat them at sea, or

deprive them of the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with

little but disaster. Meanwhile our honour will be pledged to keeping

on, particularly if it be the opinion that we began the quarrel. For

let us never be elated by the fatal hope of the war being quickly

ended by the devastation of their lands. I fear rather that we may

leave it as a legacy to our children; so improbable is it that the

Athenian spirit will be the slave of their land, or Athenian

experience be cowed by war.

 

“Not that I would bid you be so unfeeling as to suffer them to

injure your allies, and to refrain from unmasking their intrigues; but

I do bid you not to take up arms at once, but to send and

remonstrate with them in a tone not too suggestive of war, nor again

too suggestive of submission, and to employ the interval in perfecting

our own preparations. The means will be, first, the acquisition of

allies, Hellenic or barbarian it matters not, so long as they are an

accession to our strength naval or pecuniary—I say Hellenic or

barbarian, because the odium of such an accession to all who like us

are the objects of the designs of the Athenians is taken away by the

law of self-preservation—and secondly the development of our home

resources. If they listen to our embassy, so much the better; but if

not, after the lapse of two or three years our position will have

become materially strengthened, and we can then attack them if we

think proper. Perhaps by that time the sight of our preparations,

backed by language equally significant, will have disposed them to

submission, while their land is still untouched, and while their

counsels may be directed to the retention of advantages as yet

undestroyed. For the only light in which you can view their land is

that of a hostage in your hands, a hostage the more valuable the

better it is cultivated. This you ought to spare as long as

possible, and not make them desperate, and so increase the

difficulty of dealing with them. For if while still unprepared,

hurried away by the complaints of our allies, we are induced to lay it

waste, have a care that we do not bring deep disgrace and deep

perplexity upon Peloponnese. Complaints, whether of communities or

individuals, it is possible to adjust; but war undertaken by a

coalition for sectional interests, whose progress there is no means of

foreseeing, does not easily admit of creditable settlement.

 

“And none need think it cowardice for a number of confederates to

pause before they attack a single city. The Athenians have allies as

numerous as our own, and allies that pay tribute, and war is a

matter not so much of arms as of money, which makes arms of use. And

this is more than ever true in a struggle between a continental and

a maritime power. First, then, let us provide money, and not allow

ourselves to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we

have done so: as we shall have the largest share of responsibility for

the consequences be they good or bad, we have also a right to a

tranquil inquiry respecting them.

 

“And the slowness and procrastination, the parts of our character

that are most assailed by their criticism, need not make you blush. If

we undertake the war without preparation, we should by hastening its

commencement only delay its conclusion: further, a free and a famous

city has through all time been ours. The quality which they condemn is

really nothing but a wise moderation; thanks to its possession, we

alone do not become insolent in success and give way less than

others in misfortune; we are not carried away by the pleasure of

hearing ourselves cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns;

nor, if annoyed, are we any the more convinced by attempts to

exasperate us by accusation. We are both warlike and wise, and it is

our sense of order that makes us so. We are warlike, because

self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour

bravery. And we are wise, because we are educated with too little

learning to despise the laws, and with too severe a self-control to

disobey them, and are brought up not to be too knowing in useless

matters—such as the knowledge which can give a specious criticism of

an enemy’s plans in theory, but fails to assail them with equal

success in practice—but are taught to consider that the schemes of

our enemies are not dissimilar to our own, and that the freaks of

chance are not determinable by calculation. In practice we always base

our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are

good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his

blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to

believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to

think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest

school. These practices, then, which our ancestors have delivered to

us, and by whose maintenance we have always profited, must not be

given up. And we must not be hurried into deciding in a day’s brief

space a question which concerns many lives and fortunes and many

cities, and in which honour is deeply involved—but we must decide

calmly. This our strength peculiarly enables us to do. As for the

Athenians, send to them on the matter of Potidaea, send on the

matter of the alleged wrongs of the allies, particularly as they are

prepared with legal satisfaction; and to proceed against one who

offers arbitration as against a wrongdoer, law forbids. Meanwhile do

not omit preparation for war. This decision will be the best for

yourselves, the most terrible to your opponents.”

 

Such were the words of Archidamus. Last came forward Sthenelaidas,

one of the ephors for that year, and spoke to the Lacedaemonians as

follows:

 

“The long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend to understand.

They said a good deal in praise of themselves, but nowhere denied that

they are injuring our allies and Peloponnese. And yet if they

behaved well against the Mede then, but ill towards us now, they

deserve double punishment for having ceased to be good and for

having become bad. We meanwhile are the same then and now, and shall

not, if we are wise, disregard the wrongs of our allies, or put off

till to-morrow the duty of assisting those who must suffer to-day.

Others have much money and ships and horses, but we have good allies

whom we must not give up to the Athenians, nor by lawsuits and words

decide the matter, as it is anything but in word that we are harmed,

but render instant and powerful help. And let us not be told that it

is fitting for us to deliberate under injustice; long deliberation

is rather fitting for those who have injustice in contemplation.

Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour of Sparta

demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor

betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against

the aggressors.”

 

With these words he, as ephor,