History of the Peloponnesian War

"With the settled principle of the Greeks with regard to a case like ours], Lacedaemonians and allies, we are well acquainted; for when men revolt in war, and leave their former confederacy, those who receive them are pleased with them so far as they derive benefit from them; but inasmuch as they consider them traitors to their former friends, they have a meaner opinion of them.

And this is no unfair estimate of their conduct, supposing that both those who revolt, and those from whom they separate, agreed in their views and in kindly feeling, and were equally matched in resources and power, and no reasonable ground for the revolt previously existed. But this was not the case with us and the Athenians;

nor ought we to be worse thought of by any one for revolting from them in the time of their peril, when we were honoured by them in time of peace.