History of the Peloponnesian War

And those charges with which we are throwing down the Athenians, we should ourselves seem to incur in a more odious degree than a party which has shown no pretensions to honesty. For to gain advantage by specious trickery is more disgraceful, at any rate for men in high station, than to do it by open violence:

since the one is a case of aggression on the plea of might, which fortune has given; the other, by the insidiousness of a dishonest policy. [*](οὗτω πολλὴν περιωπὴν, κ. τ. λ.] These words should be closely connected with the following clause, καὶ οὐκ ἄν μείζω ... ὡς εἶπον, and the chapter should end at εἶπον, or at ποιούμεθα. —Arnold.) So great care do we take for things which most deeply interest us;

and in addition to oaths, you could not receive a greater assurance than in the case of men whose actions, when viewed in the light of their words, convey a necessary conviction that it is even expedient for them to do as they have said.

But if, when I advance these arguments, you say that you have not the power to comply with them, and yet claim, on the strength of your kind wishes, to incur no harm by refusing;

and allege that freedom does not appear to you unaccompanied with danger, and that it is right to offer it to those who have the power to accept it, but to force it on no one against his will: in that case, I will take the gods and heroes of your country to witness, that after coming for your benefit, I cannot prevail upon you to accept it; and will endeavour to compel you by ravaging your country. Nor shall I then think that I am doing wrong, but that reason is on my side, on the ground of two compulsory considerations;

with regard to the Lacedaemonians, that they may not, with all your kind feelings towards them, be injured, in case of your not being won over to them, by means of the money paid by you to the Athenians; and with regard to the Greeks, that they may not be prevented by you from escaping bondage. For otherwise, certainly we should have no right to act thus;