History of the Peloponnesian War

But we invade not now a city that cannot defend itself but a city every way well appointed. So that we must by all means expect to be fought withal, though not now because we be not yet there, yet hereafter, when they shall see us in their country wasting and destroying their possessions.

For all men, when in their own sight and on a sudden they receive any extraordinary hurt, fall presently into choler; and the less they consider, with the more stomach they assault.

And this is likely to hold in the Athenians somewhat more than in the others, for they think themselves worthy to have the command of others and to invade and waste the territories of their neighbours rather than to see their neighbours waste theirs.

Wherefore, as being to war against a great city and to procure both to your ancestors and yourselves a great fame, either good or bad as shall be the event, follow your leaders in such sort as above all things you esteem of order and watchfulness. For there is nothing in the world more comely nor more safe than when many men are seen to observe one and the same order.

Archidamus, having thus spoken and dismissed the council, first sent Melesippus the son of Diacritus, a man of Sparta, to Athens to try if the Athenians, seeing them now on their journey, would yet in some degree remit of their obstinacy.