History of the Peloponnesian War

nor think they ease with nothing to do, a less torment than laborious business. So that, in a word, to say they are men born neither to rest themselves nor suffer others is to say the truth.

Now notwithstanding, men of Lacedaemon, that this city, your adversary, be such as we have said, yet you still delay time, not knowing that those only are they to whom it may suffice for the most part of their time to sit still who, though they use not their power to do injustice, yet bewray a mind unlikely to swallow injuries, but placing equity belike in this, that you neither do any harm to others nor receive it in defending of yourselves.

But this is a thing you hardly could attain, though the states about you were of the same condition. But, as we have before declared, your customs are in respect of theirs antiquated;

and of necessity, as it happeneth in arts, the new ones will prevail. True it is that for a city living for the most part in peace, unchanged customs are the best; but for such as be constrained to undergo many matters, many devices will be needful. Which is also the reason why the Athenian customs, through much experience, are more new to you than yours are to them.

Here, therefore, give a period to your slackness and by a speedy invasion of Attica, as you promised, relieve both Potidaea and the rest, lest otherwise you betray your friends and kindred to their cruelest enemies, and lest we and others be driven through despair to seek out some other league.