History of the Peloponnesian War

"And if the thought has occurred to anyone that it is the Syracusans, not himself, who are enemies to the Athenians, and thinks it preposterous that he should incur danger for our country, let him reflect that it will not be chiefly for our country, but equally for his own at the same time that he will fight in our land, and with the greater safety, too, inasmuch as he will enter the contest, not when we have already been ruined, and not isolated himself, but having us as allies; and that the object of the Athenians is not to punish the enmity of the Syracusans, but having us as a pretext to make your ' friendship ' still more secure.

If, moreover, anyone is envious, or even afraid of Us—for greater states are exposed to both these passions—and for this reason wishes that the Syracusans shall be humbled, indeed, in order that we may be sobered, but shall survive for the sake of his own safety, he indulges a wish that is not within human power to attain. For it is not possible for the same person to be in like measure the controller of his own desires and of Fortune;

and if he should err in judgment, when he has to lament his own ills he may perhaps some day wish once more to become envious of our good fortune. But that will be impossible, if he abandons us and does not consent to incur the same dangers, which are not about names but about facts; for though nominally a man would be preserving our power, in fact he would be securing his own safety.

And most of all it were fitting that you, men of Camarina, who are on our borders and will incur danger next, should have foreseen these things and not be, as now, slack in your alliance, but rather should have come to us of yourselves, and just as you, in case the Athenians had come against Camarina first, would be calling upon us and begging us not to yield an inch, so should you be seen in like manner now also using the same exhortation. But neither you, so far at least, nor the rest have bestirred yourselves for this.