History of the Peloponnesian War

And we ought, as it is, with views as near as possible to those of islanders, to [*](αφίημι is used in a similar sense by Sophocles, oed. Col. 914. ei)=t' a)fei\sta\ th=sde th=s gh=s ku/ri', w(=d' e)peispesw\n,a)/geis q' a(/ xrh/|zeis, kai\ pari/stasai bi/a|.Soph. OC 914-916) give up all thought of our land and houses, and keep watch over the sea and the city; and not, through being enraged on their account, to come to an engagement with the Peloponnesians, who are much more numerous; (for if we defeat them, we shall have to fight again with no fewer of them: and if we meet with a reverse, our allies are lost also; for they will not remain quiet if we are not able to lead our forces against them;) and we should make lamentation, not for the houses and land, but for the lives [that are lost]; for it is not these things that gain men, but men that gain these things. And if I thought that I should persuade you, I would bid you go out yourselves and ravage them, and show the Peloponnesians that you will not submit to them for these things, at any rate.

I have also many other grounds for hoping that we shall conquer, if you will avoid gaining additional dominion at the time of your being engaged in the war, and bringing on yourselves dangers of your own choosing; for I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of the enemy's plans.

But those points shall be explained in another speech at the time of the events. At the present time let us send these men away with this answer: that with regard to the Megareans, we will allow them to use our ports and market, if the Lacedaemonians also abstain from expelling foreigners, whether ourselves or our allies ( [*]( Arnold, after Hermann, understands ἐκεῖνο and τόδε as accusatives, and supplies τι as the nominative case to κωλύει. Göller, after Haack, understands κωλύει as impersonal, neither the one nor the other is a hinderance in the treaty. ) for it forbids neither the one nor the other in the treaty): with regard to the states, that we will leave them independent, if we also held them as independent when we made the treaty; and when they too restore to the states a permission to be independent suitably to the interests, [*]( Compare chap. 19. 1. 76. 1.) not of the Lacedaemonians themselves, but of the several states, as they wish: that we are willing to submit to judicial decision, according to the treaty: and that we will not commence hostilities, but will defend ourselves against those who do. For this is both a right answer and a becoming one for the state to give.

But you should know that go to war we must; and if we accept it willingly rather than not, we shall find the enemy less disposed to press us hard; and, moreover, that it is from the greatest hazards that the greatest honours also are gained, both by state and by individual.

Our fathers, at any rate, by withstanding the Medes—though they did not begin with such resources [as we have], but had even abandoned what they had—and by counsel, more than by fortune, and by daring, more than by strength, beat off the barbarian, and advanced those resources to their present height. And we must not fall short of them; but must repel our enemies in every way, and endeavour to bequeath our power to our posterity no less [than we received it].

Pericles spoke to this effect; and the Athenians, thinking that he gave them the best advice, voted as he desired them, and answered the Lacedaemonians according to his views, both on the separate points, as he told them, and generally, that they would do nothing on command, but were ready to have their complaints settled by judicial decision, according to the treaty, on a fair and equal footing. So they went back home, and came on no more embassies afterwards.

These were the charges and differences that each side had before the war, beginning from the very time of the affairs at Epidamnus and Corcyra. Nevertheless they continued to have intercourse during them, and to go to each other's country without any herald, though not without suspicion; for what was taking place served to break up the treaty, and was a pretext for war.

The war between the Athenians and Peloponnesians and their respective allies now begins from this period, at which they ceased from further intercourse with each other without a herald, and having once proceeded to hostilities, carried them on continuously; and the history of it is written in order, as the several events happened, by summers and winters.