History of the Peloponnesian War

" Now it has been clearly shown that we have come with proper grounds of complaint against them and that they are violent and overreaching; but you have still to learn that you have no right to receive them into your alliance.

For even though it is stipulated in the treaty that any unenrolled city may join whichever party it pleases, the provision is not intended for those who apply to one side for admission with a view to the injury of the other, but for any one who, without defrauding another state of his services, asks for protection, and any one who to those who received him will not—if they are prudent—bring war instead of peace.[*](i.e., “who will permit peace to be maintained by their new friends if they exercise ordinary disretion.” No new allies should be received who will render ordinary discretion unavailing to prevent war, as the Corcyraeans are sure to do.) But this is precisely what will be your fate if you do not listen to us.

For you will not merely become allies to them, but also enemies to us instead of being at truce with us. For it will be necessary for us, if you go with them, to include you when we proceed to take vengeance upon them.

And yet the right course for you would be, preferably, to stand aloof from us both,—or else to go with us against them, remembering that you are under treaty with the Corinthians, but have never had with the Corcyraeans even an arrangement to refrain from hostilities for a time,—and not to establish the precedent of admitting into your alliance those who revolt from the other side.

Why, when the Samians[*](440 B.C. cf. Thuc. 1.115.) revolted from you, and the other Peloponnesians were divided in their votes on the question of aiding them, we on our part did not vote against you;

on the contrary, we openly maintained that each one should discipline his own allies without interference. If you receive and assist evil-doers, you will surely find that full as many of your allies will come over to us, and the precedent you establish will be against yourselves rather than against us.