History of the Peloponnesian War

"These, then, are the pleas of right which we have to urge to you, sufficiently strong according to the laws of the Greeks; and we have the following advice, and claim on you for favour, which, being not enemies so as to hurt you, nor, on the other hand, suck friends as to be very intimate with you, we say ought to be repaid to us at the present time.

For once, when you were in want of long ships for the war with the aeginetans, before that with the Medes, you received from the Corinthians twenty ships. And this service, and that with regard to the Samians, namely, that it was through us that the Peloponnesians did not assist them, gave you the mastery of the aeginetans, and the chastisement of the Samians: and it took place in those critical times in which men, when proceeding against their enemies, are most regardless of every thing besides victory. [*]( Or, in comparison with victory. )

For they esteem him a friend who assists them, even though he may before have been an enemy; and him a foe who opposes them, though he may have happened to be a friend; nay they even mismanage their own affairs for the sake of their animosity at the moment.

"Thinking then of these things, and each younger man having learned them from some one older, let him resolve to requite us with the like, and not deem that these things are justly urged, but that others are expedient in case of his going to war.

For expediency most attends that line of conduct in which one does least wrong. And as for the [*]( Referring to these words of the Corcyraeans, ὅταν ἐς τὸν μέλλοντα καὶὅσον οὐ παρόντα πόλεμον τὸ αὐτίκα περισκοπῶν ἐνδοιάζῃ χωρίον προοσλαβεῖν κ. τ. λ. Chap. 36. 1.) coming of the war, frightening you with which the Corcyrraeans bid you commit injustice, it lies as yet in uncertainty; and it is not worth while, through being excited by it, to incur a certain enmity with the Corinthians, immediate, and not coming; but rather it were prudent to remove somewhat of our before existing suspicion on account of the Megareans.

For the latest obligation, when well timed, even though it may be comparatively small, has power to wipe out a greater subject of complaint.