History of the Peloponnesian War

" I have both myself, Lacedaemonians, had experience in my day of many wars, and I see men among you who are as old as I am; no one of them, therefore, is eager for war through lack of experience, as would be the case with most men, nor because he thinks it a good or a safe thing.

And you would find that this war about which you are now deliberating is likely to prove no trifling matter, if one should reflect upon it soberly.

For in a contest with the Peloponnesians or the neighbouring states[*](By the Peloponnesians Thucydides means the Spartan alliance; the neighbouring states would then be the Peloponnesian states not in the alliance, e.g. Argos.) our power is of the same type with theirs[*](i.e., it is military rather than naval; similar, too, in the matter of wealth, equipment, absence of foreign resources, tributary allies, etc.) and we can be upon them quickly at every point; but when opposed to men whose territory is far away, who besides are beyond all others experienced in seamanship and are best equipped in all other respects, with wealth both private and public, ships, horses, arms and a larger population than is to be found in anyother single district in Hellas, who have, moreover, numerous allies subject to tribute—against such men why should we lightly take up arms ? In what do we place our trust that we should attack them unprepared ? In our ships? But there we are inferior;

and if we train and make ourselves ready to encounter them, that will take time. In our wealth then ? But in that respect we are still more deficient, neither having money in the treasury of the state nor finding it easy to raise money from our private resources by taxation.[*](The poverty of the Peloponnesians is referred to by Pericles in Thuc. 1.141.3. The statement is true especially of the Spartans, but also of all the rest except the Corinthians.)