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

fear by your advance to endanger what you have

left behind. They are swift to follow up a success, and slow to recoil

from a reverse. Their bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their

country’s cause; their intellect they jealously husband to be employed

in her service. A scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a

successful enterprise a comparative failure. The deficiency created by

the miscarriage of an undertaking is soon filled up by fresh hopes;

for they alone are enabled to call a thing hoped for a thing got, by

the speed with which they act upon their resolutions. Thus they toil

on in trouble and danger all the days of their life, with little

opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged in getting: their only

idea of a holiday is to do what the occasion demands, and to them

laborious occupation is less of a misfortune than the peace of a quiet

life. To describe their character in a word, one might truly say

that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to

give none to others.

 

“Such is Athens, your antagonist. And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still

delay, and fail to see that peace stays longest with those, who are

not more careful to use their power justly than to show their

determination not to submit to injustice. On the contrary, your

ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that, if you do not

injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing

others from injuring you. Now you could scarcely have succeeded in

such a policy even with a neighbour like yourselves; but in the

present instance, as we have just shown, your habits are old-fashioned

as compared with theirs. It is the law as in art, so in politics, that

improvements ever prevail; and though fixed usages may be best for

undisturbed communities, constant necessities of action must be

accompanied by the constant improvement of methods. Thus it happens

that the vast experience of Athens has carried her further than you on

the path of innovation.

 

“Here, at least, let your procrastination end. For the present,

assist your allies and Potidaea in particular, as you promised, by a

speedy invasion of Attica, and do not sacrifice friends and kindred to

their bitterest enemies, and drive the rest of us in despair to some

other alliance. Such a step would not be condemned either by the

Gods who received our oaths, or by the men who witnessed them. The

breach of a treaty cannot be laid to the people whom desertion compels

to seek new relations, but to the power that fails to assist its

confederate. But if you will only act, we will stand by you; it

would be unnatural for us to change, and never should we meet with

such a congenial ally. For these reasons choose the right course,

and endeavour not to let Peloponnese under your supremacy degenerate

from the prestige that it enjoyed under that of your ancestors.”

 

Such were the words of the Corinthians. There happened to be

Athenian envoys present at Lacedaemon on other business. On hearing

the speeches they thought themselves called upon to come before the

Lacedaemonians. Their intention was not to offer a defence on any of

the charges which the cities brought against them, but to show on a

comprehensive view that it was not a matter to be hastily decided

on, but one that demanded further consideration. There was also a wish

to call attention to the great power of Athens, and to refresh the

memory of the old and enlighten the ignorance of the young, from a

notion that their words might have the effect of inducing them to

prefer tranquillity to war. So they came to the Lacedaemonians and

said that they too, if there was no objection, wished to speak to

their assembly. They replied by inviting them to come forward. The

Athenians advanced, and spoke as follows:

 

“The object of our mission here was not to argue with your allies,

but to attend to the matters on which our state dispatched us.

However, the vehemence of the outcry that we hear against us has

prevailed on us to come forward. It is not to combat the accusations

of the cities (indeed you are not the judges before whom either we

or they can plead), but to prevent your taking the wrong course on

matters of great importance by yielding too readily to the persuasions

of your allies. We also wish to show on a review of the whole

indictment that we have a fair title to our possessions, and that

our country has claims to consideration. We need not refer to remote

antiquity: there we could appeal to the voice of tradition, but not to

the experience of our audience. But to the Median War and contemporary

history we must refer, although we are rather tired of continually

bringing this subject forward. In our action during that war we ran

great risk to obtain certain advantages: you had your share in the

solid results, do not try to rob us of all share in the good that

the glory may do us. However, the story shall be told not so much to

deprecate hostility as to testify against it, and to show, if you

are so ill advised as to enter into a struggle with Athens, what

sort of an antagonist she is likely to prove. We assert that at

Marathon we were at the front, and faced the barbarian

single-handed. That when he came the second time, unable to cope

with him by land we went on board our ships with all our people, and

joined in the action at Salamis. This prevented his taking the

Peloponnesian states in detail, and ravaging them with his fleet; when

the multitude of his vessels would have made any combination for

self-defence impossible. The best proof of this was furnished by the

invader himself. Defeated at sea, he considered his power to be no

longer what it had been, and retired as speedily as possible with

the greater part of his army.

 

“Such, then, was the result of the matter, and it was clearly proved

that it was on the fleet of Hellas that her cause depended. Well, to

this result we contributed three very useful elements, viz., the

largest number of ships, the ablest commander, and the most

unhesitating patriotism. Our contingent of ships was little less

than two-thirds of the whole four hundred; the commander was

Themistocles, through whom chiefly it was that the battle took place

in the straits, the acknowledged salvation of our cause. Indeed,

this was the reason of your receiving him with honours such as had

never been accorded to any foreign visitor. While for daring

patriotism we had no competitors. Receiving no reinforcements from

behind, seeing everything in front of us already subjugated, we had

the spirit, after abandoning our city, after sacrificing our

property (instead of deserting the remainder of the league or

depriving them of our services by dispersing), to throw ourselves into

our ships and meet the danger, without a thought of resenting your

neglect to assist us. We assert, therefore, that we conferred on you

quite as much as we received. For you had a stake to fight for; the

cities which you had left were still filled with your homes, and you

had the prospect of enjoying them again; and your coming was

prompted quite as much by fear for yourselves as for us; at all

events, you never appeared till we had nothing left to lose. But we

left behind us a city that was a city no longer, and staked our

lives for a city that had an existence only in desperate hope, and

so bore our full share in your deliverance and in ours. But if we

had copied others, and allowed fears for our territory to make us give

in our adhesion to the Mede before you came, or if we had suffered our

ruin to break our spirit and prevent us embarking in our ships, your

naval inferiority would have made a sea-fight unnecessary, and his

objects would have been peaceably attained.

 

“Surely, Lacedaemonians, neither by the patriotism that we displayed

at that crisis, nor by the wisdom of our counsels, do we merit our

extreme unpopularity with the Hellenes, not at least unpopularity

for our empire. That empire we acquired by no violent means, but

because you were unwilling to prosecute to its conclusion the war

against the barbarian, and because the allies attached themselves to

us and spontaneously asked us to assume the command. And the nature of

the case first compelled us to advance our empire to its present

height; fear being our principal motive, though honour and interest

afterwards came in. And at last, when almost all hated us, when some

had already revolted and had been subdued, when you had ceased to be

the friends that you once were, and had become objects of suspicion

and dislike, it appeared no longer safe to give up our empire;

especially as all who left us would fall to you. And no one can

quarrel with a people for making, in matters of tremendous risk, the

best provision that it can for its interest.

 

“You, at all events, Lacedaemonians, have used your supremacy to

settle the states in Peloponnese as is agreeable to you. And if at the

period of which we were speaking you had persevered to the end of

the matter, and had incurred hatred in your command, we are sure

that you would have made yourselves just as galling to the allies, and

would have been forced to choose between a strong government and

danger to yourselves. It follows that it was not a very wonderful

action, or contrary to the common practice of mankind, if we did

accept an empire that was offered to us, and refused to give it up

under the pressure of three of the strongest motives, fear, honour,

and interest. And it was not we who set the example, for it has always

been law that the weaker should be subject to the stronger. Besides,

we believed ourselves to be worthy of our position, and so you thought

us till now, when calculations of interest have made you take up the

cry of justice—a consideration which no one ever yet brought forward

to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything by

might. And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human

nature as to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their

position compels them to do.

 

“We imagine that our moderation would be best demonstrated by the

conduct of others who should be placed in our position; but even our

equity has very unreasonably subjected us to condemnation instead of

approval. Our abatement of our rights in the contract trials with

our allies, and our causing them to be decided by impartial laws at

Athens, have gained us the character of being litigious. And none care

to inquire why this reproach is not brought against other imperial

powers, who treat their subjects with less moderation than we do;

the secret being that where force can be used, law is not needed.

But our subjects are so habituated to associate with us as equals that

any defeat whatever that clashes with their notions of justice,

whether it proceeds from a legal judgment or from the power which

our empire gives us, makes them forget to be grateful for being

allowed to retain most of their possessions, and more vexed at a

part being taken, than if we had from the first cast law aside and

openly gratified our covetousness. If we had done so, not even would

they have disputed that the weaker must give way to the stronger.

Men’s indignation,