History of the Peloponnesian War

"I have no fault to find with those who have proposed a reconsideration of the question of the Mytilenaeans, nor do I commend those who object to repeated deliberation on matters of the greatest moment; on the contrary, I believe the two things most opposed to good counsel are haste and passion, of which the one is wont to keep company with folly, the other with an undisciplined and shallow mind.

As for words, whoever contends[*](Directed at Cleon's remarks, 3.38.4 ff.) that they are not to be guides of our actions is either dull of wit or has some private interest at stake—dull, if he thinks it possible by any other means to throw light on that which still belongs to the dim and distant future; self-interested, if, wishing to put through a discreditable measure, he realizes that while he cannot speak well in a bad cause, he can at least slander well and thus intimidate both his opponents and his hearers. Most dangerous of all, however, are precisely those who[*](Like Cleon, 3.38.2; 3.40.1, 3.) charge a speaker beforehand with being bribed to make a display of rhetoric.

For if they merely imputed ignorance, the speaker who failed to carry his audience might go his way with the repute of being dull but not dishonest; when, however, the charge is dishonesty, the speaker who succeeds becomes an object of suspicion, whereas if he fails he is regarded as not only dull but dishonest as well.

And all this is a detriment to the state, which is thus robbed of its counsellors through fear. Indeed it would prosper most if its citizens of this stamp had no eloquence at all, for then the people would be least likely to blunder through their influence.

But the good citizen ought to show himself a better speaker, not by trying to browbeat those who will oppose him, but by fair argument; and while the wise city should not indeed confer fresh honours upon the man whose advice is most often salutary, it certainly should not detract from those which he already has, and as for him whose suggestion does not meet with approval, so far from punishing him, it should not even treat him with disrespect.

For then it would be least likely that a successful speaker, with a view to being counted worthy of still greater honours, would speak insincerely and for the purpose of winning favour and that the unsuccessful speaker would employ the same means, by courting favour in his turn in an effort to win the multitude to himself.