History of the Peloponnesian War

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.