History of the Peloponnesian War

"For although we are at a disadvantage in suits[*](These seem to have been disputes in matters of trade tried before federal courts elsewhere than in Athens; whereas τὰς κρίσεις refers to compulsory jurisdiction which Athens enforced upon her allies in her own courts.) with our allies arising out of commercial agreements, and although in our own courts in Athens, where we have established tribunals, the same laws apply to us as to them, we are thought to insist too much upon our legal rights.

And none of our allies observes why it is that those who hold dominion elsewhere, and are less moderate than we are toward their subjects, are not reproached on this account. It is because those who may use might have no need to appeal to right.

But if ever our allies, accustomed as they are to associate with us on the basis of equality, come off second best in any matter, however trivial, contrary to their own notion that it ought to be otherwise, whether their discomfiture is due to a legal decision or to the exercise of our imperial power, instead of being grateful that they have not been deprived of what is of greater moment,[*](Namely, their equality before the law.) they are more deeply offended because of their trifling inequality than if we had from the first put aside all legal restraints and had openly sought our own advantage.

In that case even they would not be setting up the claim that the weaker should not have to yield to the stronger. Men, it seems, are more resentful of injustice than of violence;

for the former, they feel, is overreaching by an equal, whereas the latter is coercion by a superior. At any rate, they submitted to more grievous wrongs than these at the hands of the Persians, while our rule is hard to bear, as they think;

and no wonder, for the present yoke is always heavy to subjects. Certainly you, should you overthrow us and obtain supremacy, would soon lose the good will which you have gained through fear of usif indeed you mean again to show such temper as you gave a glimpse of at that time when for a little while you had the hegemony against the Persian.[*](e.g. the conduct of Pausanias described in Thuc. 1.130 - Thuc. 1.133)For the institutions that prevail among you at home are incompatible with those of other peoples, and, besides, each one of you when he goes abroad uses neither these nor those which the rest of Greece is accustomed to.