History of the Peloponnesian War

The same summer, the inhabitants of Camarina and Gela in Sicily first made an armistice with one another; and then all the rest of the Sicilians also assembled at Gela, with embassies from all the cities, and held a conference together on the subject of a reconciliation. And many other opinions were expressed on both sides of the question, while they stated their differences and urged their claims, as they severally thought themselves injured; and Hermocrates son of Hermon, a Syracusan, the man who had the greatest influence with them, addressed the following words to the assembly:

"It is not because I am of a city that is either the least powerful, or the most distressed by hostilities, that I shall address you, Sicilians, but in order publicly to state what appears to me the best policy for the whole of Sicily.