History of the Peloponnesian War

I have also many other grounds for hoping that we shall conquer, if you will avoid gaining additional dominion at the time of your being engaged in the war, and bringing on yourselves dangers of your own choosing; for I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of the enemy's plans.

But those points shall be explained in another speech at the time of the events. At the present time let us send these men away with this answer: that with regard to the Megareans, we will allow them to use our ports and market, if the Lacedaemonians also abstain from expelling foreigners, whether ourselves or our allies ( [*]( Arnold, after Hermann, understands ἐκεῖνο and τόδε as accusatives, and supplies τι as the nominative case to κωλύει. Göller, after Haack, understands κωλύει as impersonal, neither the one nor the other is a hinderance in the treaty. ) for it forbids neither the one nor the other in the treaty): with regard to the states, that we will leave them independent, if we also held them as independent when we made the treaty; and when they too restore to the states a permission to be independent suitably to the interests, [*]( Compare chap. 19. 1. 76. 1.) not of the Lacedaemonians themselves, but of the several states, as they wish: that we are willing to submit to judicial decision, according to the treaty: and that we will not commence hostilities, but will defend ourselves against those who do. For this is both a right answer and a becoming one for the state to give.

But you should know that go to war we must; and if we accept it willingly rather than not, we shall find the enemy less disposed to press us hard; and, moreover, that it is from the greatest hazards that the greatest honours also are gained, both by state and by individual.

Our fathers, at any rate, by withstanding the Medes—though they did not begin with such resources [as we have], but had even abandoned what they had—and by counsel, more than by fortune, and by daring, more than by strength, beat off the barbarian, and advanced those resources to their present height. And we must not fall short of them; but must repel our enemies in every way, and endeavour to bequeath our power to our posterity no less [than we received it].