History of the Peloponnesian War

"To be convinced of this, you need only look at our present misfortunes. We who of all the Hellenes formerly were held in the highest consideration have come before you, although we have been wont to regard ourselves as better entitled to confer such favours as we have now come to beg of you.

And yet it was neither through lack of power that we met with this misfortune, nor because our power became too great and we waxed insolent; nay, our resources were what they always were and we merely erred in judgment—a thing to which all are alike liable.

Accordingly there is no reason why you, because of the strength both of your city and of its new acquisitions at the present moment, should expect that the favour of fortune will always be with you.

Prudent men take the safe course of accounting prosperity mutable[*](Or, “make sure of their advantages having regard to changes of luck,”)—the same men, too, would deal more sagaciously with misfortunes—and consider that when anyone is at war he may not limit his participation to whatever portion of it he may choose to carry on,[*](ie. in warfare one cannot accept only the successes and avoid the reverses by stopping before the latter set in; one is in the hands of fortune.) but that he must follow where his fortune leads. Such men are least likely to come to grief, since they do not allow themselves to become elated by overconfidence in military success, and are therefore most likely to seize the moment of good fortune for concluding peace.

And this, Athenians, is the policy which it is good for you to adopt towards us to-day, and not at some future time, should you perchance through rejecting our overtures incur disaster—and of this there are many possibilities—be credited with having won even your present successes through good fortune, when it is possible to leave to posterity an unhazarded reputation at once for strength and sagacity.