History of the Peloponnesian War

Which to do were no injustice neither against the Gods, judges of men's oaths, nor against men, the hearers of them. For not they break the league who being abandoned have recourse to others, but they that yield not their assistance to whom they have sworn it. But if you mean to follow the business seriously, we will stay;

for else we should do irreligiously, neither should we find any other more conformable to our manners than yourselves.

Therefore, deliberate well of these points, and take such a course that Peloponnesus may not by your leading fall into worse estate than it was left unto you by your progenitors.

Thus spake the Corinthians. The Athenian ambassadors, who chanced to be residing at Lacedaemon upon their business, when they heard of this oration thought fit to present themselves before the Lacedaemonians, not to make apology for what they were charged with by the other cities, but to show in general that it was not fit for them in this case to take any sudden resolution but farther time to consider. Also they desired to lay open the power of their city, to the elder sort, for a remembrance of what they knew already, and to the younger, for an information of what they knew not, supposing that when they should have spoken, they would incline to quietness rather than to war.

And therefore they presented themselves before the Lacedaemonians saying that they also, if they might have leave, desired to speak in the assembly, who willed them to come in. And the Athenians went into the assembly and spake to this effect: