History of the Peloponnesian War

It was in Corcyra,[*](This chapter is bracketed as spurious by Hude and nearly all recent commentators, because it is condemned by the ancient grammarians, is not mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and is obelised in Codex F.) then, that most of these atrocities were first committed—all the acts of retaliation which men who are governed with highhanded insolence rather than with moderation are likely to commit upon their rulers when these at last afford them opportunity for revenge; or such as men resolve upon contrary to justice when they seek release from their accustomed poverty, and in consequence of their sufferings are likely to be most eager for their neighbours' goods;[*](Or, μάλιστα δ’ ἂν διὰ πάθους ἐπιθυμοῦντες, “would be above all men passionately eager for. . .”) and assaults of pitiless cruelty, such as men make, not with a view to gain, but when, being on terms of complete equality with their foe, they are utterly carried away by uncontrollable passion.

At this crisis, when the life of the city had been thrown into utter confusion, human nature, now triumphant over the laws, and accustomed even in spite of the laws to do wrong, took delight in showing that its passions were ungovernable, that it was stronger than justice and an enemy to all superiority. For surely no man would have put revenge before religion, and gain before innocence of wrong, had not envy swayed him with her blighting power.

Indeed, men do not hesitate, when they seek to avenge themselves upon others, to abrogate in advance the common principles observed in such cases—those principles upon which depends every man's own hope of salvation should he himself be overtaken by misfortune—thus failing to leave them in force against the time when perchance a man in peril shall have need of some one of them.