History of the Peloponnesian War

But you, if you are well advised, will examine and form your estimate of what is probable, not from what these men report, but from what shrewd men of much experience, such as I deem the Athenians to be, would be likely to do.

For it is not probable that they would leave the Peloponnesians behind them before they have yet brought the war there surely to an end, and voluntarily come here to prosecute another war quite as great; for I myself think that they are content that we do not come against them, being so numerous and so powerful.