History of the Peloponnesian War

"Our embassy did not come here to enter into a dispute with your allies, but on the business for which our city sent us. Perceiving, however, that no small outcry is being made against us, we have come forward, not to answer the charges of the cities (for it can hardly be that either they or we are addressing you as judges), but in order that you may not, yielding to the persuasion of your allies, lightly make a wrong decision about matters of great importance. And at the same time we wish, as regards the whole outcry that has been raised against us, to show that we are rightfully in possession of what we have acquired, and that our city is not to be despised. "Now, what need is there to speak about matters quite remote,[*](The Schol. remarks τὰ κατὰ Ἀμαζόνας καὶ Θρᾷκας καὶ Ηρακλειδας, favourite themes in eulogies, panegyric speeches, etc.) whose only witnesses are the stories men hear rather than the eyes of those who will hear them told?

But concerning the Persian War and all the other events of which you have personal knowledge, we needs must speak, even though it will be rather irksome to mention them, since they are always being paraded. For when we were performing those deeds the risk was taken for a common benefit, and since you got a share of the actual results of that benefit, we should not be wholly deprived of the credit, if there is any benefit in that.

And our aim in the recital of the facts will be, not so much to deprecate censure, as to show by evidence with what sort of city you will be involved in war if you are not well advised.

"For we affirm that at Marathon we alone bore the first brunt of the Barbarian's attack, and that when he came again, not being able to defend ourselves by land, we embarked in a body on our ships and joined in the sea-fight at Salamis. This prevented his sailing against you city by city and ravaging the Peloponnesus, for you would have been unable to aid one another against a fleet so numerous.

And the weightiest testimony to the truth of what we say was afforded by the enemy himself; for when his fleet was defeated, as if aware that his power was no longer a match for that of the Hellenes, he hastily withdrew with the greater part of his army.