History of the Peloponnesian War

" Since these Corcyraeans have not confined themselves to the question of their admission into your alliance, but have gone further and urged that we are the wrong-doers and they are unfairly attacked, we too must of necessity touch upon both these points before we proceed to our general argument, in order that you may be more definitely forewarned of the nature of tle demand we have to make, and may have good grounds for rejecting their petition. "They say that 'a wise discretion' has hitherto kept them from accepting an alliance with anyone;

but the fact is that they adopted this policy with a view to villainy and not from virtuous motives, and because they wished in their misdeeds not to have any ally as witness, or to be put to shame if they invited his presence.

Moreover, the insular and independent position of this state causes them to be arbitrary judges of the injuries they do to others instead of being judges appointed by mutual agreement; owing to the fact that they resort very little to the ports of their neighbours, but to a very large extent receive into their ports others who are compelled to put in there.

And meanwhile they have used as a cloak their specious policy of avoiding alliances, adopted not in order to avoid joining others in wrong-doing, but that they may do wrong all alone; that wherever they have power they may use violence, and wherever they can escape detection they may overreach someone; and if, perchance, they can steal a march on anyone, that they may brazen it out.

And yet, if they were really honest men, as they pretend to be, the less liable they were to attack by their neighbours the more clearly they might have demonstrated their virtuous motives by offering and accepting proposals of arbitration.