History of the Peloponnesian War

And therefore it were hard that you should now be otherwise minded and withstand your own and the rest of the Grecians' liberty,

not only in that yourselves resist us, but also because others whom I go to will be the less willing to come in, making difficulty because you to whom I came first, having a flourishing city and being esteemed wise, have refused us. For which I shall have no sufficient excuse to plead, but must be thought either to pretend to set up liberty unjustly, or to come weak and without power to maintain you against the Athenians.