History of the Peloponnesian War

"We must remember also that we have had now some short recreation from a late great plague and great war, and thereby are improved both in men and money, which it is most meet that we should spend here upon ourselves and not upon those outlaws which seek for aid, seeing it maketh for them to tell us a specious lie; who, contributing only words whilst their friends bear all the danger, if they speed well, shall be disobliged of thanks, if ill, undo their friends for company.

Now if there be any man here that for ends of his own, as being glad to be general, especially being yet too young to have charge in chief, shall advise the expedition to the end he may have admiration for his expense upon horses and help from his place to defray that expense, suffer him not to purchase his private honour and splendour with the danger of the public fortune. Believe rather that such men, though they rob the public, do nevertheless consume also their private wealth. Besides, the matter itself is full of great difficulties, such as it is not fit for a young man to consult of, much less hastily to take in hand.

"And I, seeing those now sit by and abet the same man, am fearful of them; and I do on the other side exhort the elder sort (if any of them sit near those other) not to be ashamed to deliver their minds freely, as fearing that if they gave their voice against the war they should be esteemed cowards, nor to doat (as they do) upon things absent, knowing that by passion the fewest actions and by reason the most do prosper; but rather for the benefit of their country, which is now cast into greater danger than ever before, to hold up their hands on the other side and decree that the Sicilians, within the limits they now enjoy, not misliked by you, and with liberty to sail by the shore in the Ionian gulf, and in the main of the Sicilian sea, shall possess their own and compound their differences between themselves.

And for the Egestaeans, to answer them in particular thus: that as without the Athenians they had begun the war against the Selinuntians, so they should without them likewise end it; and that we shall no more hereafter, as we have used to do, make such men our confederates, as when they do injury, we must maintain it, and when we require their assistance, cannot have it.

And you, the president, if you think it your office to take care of the commonwealth and desire to be a good member of the same, put these things once more to the question, and let the Athenians speak to it again. Think (if you be afraid to infringe the orders of the assembly) that before so many witnesses it will not be made a crime, but that you shall be rather thought a physician of your country, that hath swallowed down evil counsel. And he truly dischargeth the duty of a president who laboureth to do his country the most good, or at least will not willingly do it hurt.