History of the Peloponnesian War

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.