History of the Peloponnesian War

The rest of our colonies, at any rate, honour us, and by our colonists we are beloved more than is any other mother-city.

And it is clear that, if we are acceptable to the majority, it cannot be on good grounds that we are unacceptable to these alone; nor are we making war upon them in a way so unusual without being also signally wronged.

And even if we were at fault, the honourable course for them would have been to make allowance for our temper, in which case it would have been shameful for us to outrage their moderation; but in the insolence and arrogance of wealth they have wronged us in many other ways, and particularly in the case of Epidamnus, our colony, which they made no claim to when it was in distress, but seized by force the moment we came to its relief, and continue to hold.

"They pretend, forsooth, that they were the first to agree to an arbitration of the issue; but surely it is not the proposals of the one who has the advantage, and occupies a safe position when he invites arbitration, that ought to have weight, but rather those of the one who has made his actions tally with his professions before appealing to arms.

These men, however, bring forward their specious offer of a court of arbitration, not before laying siege to the place, but only after they had concluded that we would not permit it. And now, not satisfied with the blunders they have committed themselves at Epidamnus, they have come here demanding that you too at this juncture, shall be, not their allies, but their accomplices in crime, and that you shall receive them, now that they are at variance with us.

But they ought to have come to you when they were in no peril at all, and not at a time when we are victims of their injustice and they are consequently in danger, nor when you, without having had the benefit of their power before, will now have to give them a share of your aid, and, though you had nothing to do with their blunders, will have to bear an equal part of the blame we shall bestow. For only if you from the first had shared their power ought you to share the consequences also now of their acts.