History of the Peloponnesian War

Nay, one and the same design has guided them in acquiring their possessions over there and is now guiding them in their endeavour to acquire possessions here: after they had become leaders, by the free choice of their associates, both of the Ionians and of all those, descendants of the Ionians, who were members of the alliance that was concluded, avowedly, for revenge upon the Persians, they charged some with refusal to serve, others with warring upon one another, others with whatever specious charge they had at hand, and so reduced them to subjection.

And so, after all, it was not for ' freedom' that they withstood the Persians, neither the Athenians to win it for the Hellenes nor the Hellenes to win it for themselves, but they fought for the enslavement of the rest to themselves, and the Hellenes for a change of master, not to one more unwise, but more wickedly wise.