If we have the courage for such a course and never falter in it, you will see those who now issue commands imploring and beseeching us to take back Messene and make peace. For what state in the Peloponnesus could withstand a war such as would in all likelihood be waged if we so willed? What people would not be stricken with dismay and terror at the assembling of an army which had carried out such measures, which had been roused to just wrath against those who had driven it to these extremes, and which had been rendered desperate and reckless of life—