History of the Peloponnesian War

"Such now having been the result, and it having been clearly shown that it was on the fleet of the Greeks that their cause depended, we contributed the three most useful things towards it; viz. the greatest number of ships, the most able man as a genera, and the most unshrinking zeal. Towards the four hundred ships we contributed not less than two parts; [*](What parts we must suppose the speaker to have referred to in this passage, whether quarters or thirds, is much disputed. Didot and Göller maintain the former, as being in strict agreement with the statement of Herodotus, who makes the whole fleet to have consisted of three hundred and seventy-eight ships, and the Athenian portion of one hundred and eighty. Arnold, after Bredow and Poppo, supports the other interpretation, and observes, that this is not the statement of Thucydides, but of the Athenian orator, who is made very characteristically to indulge in gross exaggerations. See his whole note on the passage. Bishop Thirlwall, however, thinks that such an exaggeration would have been in very bad taste on such an occasion; and that Thucydides meant to state the true numbers; in which, he observes, if we read τριακοσίας for τετρακοσίας he would have followed aeschylus instead of Herodotus, whom indeed it is possible he had not read Vol 2. Append. 4.) and Themistocles as commander, who was chiefly instrumental of their fighting in the Strait, which most clearly saved their cause; and you yourselves for this reason honoured him most, for a stranger, of all that have ever gone to you.

And a zeal by far the most daring we exhibited, inasmuch as when no one came to assist us by land, the rest as far as us being already enslaved, we determined, though we had left our city, and sacrificed our property, not even in those circumstances to abandon the common cause of the remaining allies, nor to become useless to them by dispersing; but to go on board our ships, and face the danger; and not to be angry because you had not previously assisted us.

So then we assert that we ourselves no less conferred a benefit upon you, than we obtained one. For you, setting out from cities that were inhabited, and with a view to enjoying them in future, came to our assistance, [only] after you were afraid for yourselves, and not so much for us; (at any rate, when we were still in safety, you did not come to us;) but we, setting out from a country which was no more, and running the risk for what existed only in scanty hope, bore our full share in the deliverance both of you and of ourselves.

But if we had before joined the Mede through fear for our country, like others, or had afterwards had no heart to go on board our ships, considering ourselves as ruined men; there would have been no longer any need of your fighting by sea without a sufficient number of ships, but things would have quietly progressed for him just as he wished.