History of the Peloponnesian War

At this point then let your dilatoriness cease: and now assist us, and especially the Potidaeans, as you undertook, by making with all speed an incursion into Attica; that you may not give up men who are your friends and kinsmen to their bitterest enemies, and turn the rest of us in despair to some other alliance.

And in that we should do nothing unjust, in the sight either of the gods who received our oaths [*]( Or, as Arnold, after Reiske and others, explains it, who are capable of feeling and observing. ) or of the men who witness [our conduct]: for the breakers of a treaty are not those who from destitution apply to others, but those who do not assist their confederates.

If, however, you will be zealous, we will stand by you; for neither should we act rightly in changing, nor should we find others more congenial.

Wherefore deliberate well, and endeavour to keep a supremacy in the Peloponnese no less than your fathers bequeathed to you.