History of the Peloponnesian War

So that you have no reason to conceive that for your power and purchases fortune also must be therefore always yours.

Such wise men as safely reckon their prosperity in the account of things doubtful do most wisely also address themselves towards adversity and not think that war will so far follow and no further as one shall please more or less to take it in hand, but rather so far as fortune shall lead it. Such men also, seldom miscarrying because they be not puffed up with the confidence of success, choose then principally to give over when they are in their better fortune.

And so it will be good for you, men of Athens, to do with us, and not, if rejecting our advice you chance to miscarry (as many ways you may), to have it thought hereafter that all your present successes were but mere fortune; whereas, on the contrary, it is in your hands without danger to leave a reputation to posterity both of strength and wisdom.

"The Lacedaemonians call you to a peace and end of the war, giving you peace and alliance and much other friendship and mutual familiarity, requiring for the same [only] those their men that are in the island, though also we think it better for both sides not to try the chance of war, whether it fall out that by some occasion of safety offered they escape by force, or being expugned by siege should be more in your power than they be.

For we are of this mind, that great hatred is most safely cancelled not when one that having beaten his enemy and gotten much the better in the war brings him through necessity to take an oath and to make peace on unequal terms, but when having it in his power lawfully so to do if he please, he overcome him likewise in goodness, and, contrary to what he expects, be reconciled to him on moderate conditions.

For in this case, his enemy being obliged not to seek revenge as one that had been forced, but to requite his goodness, will, for shame, be the more inclined to the conditions agreed on.

And, naturally, to those that relent of their own accord men give way reciprocally with content; but against the arrogant they will hazard all, even when in their own judgments they be too weak.

But for us both, if ever it were good to agree, it is surely so at this present and before any irreparable accident be interposed. Whereby we should be compelled, besides the common, to bear you a particular eternal hatred, and you be deprived of the commodities we now offer you.

Let us be reconciled while matters stand undecided, and whilst you have gained reputation and our friendship, and we not suffered dishonour and but indifferent loss. And we shall not only ourselves prefer peace before war, but also give a cessation of their miseries to all the rest of the Grecians, who will acknowledge it rather from you than us. For they make war not knowing whether side begun; but if an end be made, which is now for the most part in your own hands, the thanks will be yours.

And by decreeing the peace, you may make the Lacedaemonians your sure friends, inasmuch as they call you to it and are therein not forced but gratified.

Wherein consider how many commodities are like to ensue. For if we and you go one way, you know the rest of Greece, being inferior to us, will honour us in the highest degree.

Thus spake the Lacedaemonians, thinking that in times past the Athenians had coveted peace and been hindered of it by them, and that being now offered, they would gladly accept of it.