History of the Peloponnesian War

but if you decide otherwise, you will not oblige them, but will rather pass sentence upon yourselves. For if they were right in revolting you cannot properly maintain your empire. If, however, you determine to do so, even though it is not proper, you must also, overlooking what is right, punish these men from regard to expediency, or else give up your empire, and act the honest man without danger. Resolve, then, to requite them with the same penalty; and not to show yourselves, in escaping their designs, more insensible than those who formed them against you;

considering what they would probably have done, if they had prevailed over you; especially, as they were the first; to begin the wrong. For it is those who do ill to any one without reason, that persecute him most bitterly, [*]( Göller and Poppo follow Hermann in taking ἀπόλλυνται passively, they are killed by living in suspicion of danger, etc.) nay, even to the death, from suspicion of the danger of their enemy's being spared;

since he who has suffered evil without any necessity, [but by provoking it himself,] is more bitter, if he escape, than one who was an enemy on equal terms. Be not therefore traitors to your own cause;

but bringing yourselves in feeling as near as possible to the actual state of suffering, and reflecting how you would in that case have valued their subjection above every thing, now pay them back in return, not indulging in weakness at the present moment, nor forgetting the danger which once hung over you. Punish these men, I say, as they deserve; and give a striking example to the rest of your allies, that whoever revolts will pay the penalty for it with his life. For if they know this, you will less frequently have to neglect your enemies, while you are fighting with your own confederates.