History of the Peloponnesian War

Against this then you, if you take good advice, will be on your guard; and will not consider it discreditable to submit to the most powerful state, when it offers you fair terms, namely, that you should become tributary allies, with the enjoyment of your own country; and when a choice of war or safety is given you, to avoid choosing through animosity what is worse for you. For whatever men do not yield to their equals, while they keep on good terms with their superiors, and are moderate to their inferiors, they would be most successful.

Consider then, even after we have retired; and reflect again and again, that it is for your country that you are consulting, [*]( The construction of this sentence, according to the common reading, is abandoned as desperate by all the editors. Göller and Bloomfield substitute ἴστε for ἔσται; but Poppo protests strongly against the change. With due deference to such authorities, I would venture to ask, whether the text, as it stands, may not be explained by supposing δουλεύεσθαι to be understood with ἔσται—the infinitive being suggested by the indicative at the end of the antecedent clause—and referring ἣν not to πατρίδος as has been done hitherto, but to βουλήν. ἐς μίαν would then stand without its substantive, as it does Horm. Il. 2. 379, though in a different sense. Or, if that be considered a difficulty, it would perhaps be nothing inconsistent with the frequently careless style of Thucydides to suppose a confusion of two expressions, so that both ἥν and μίαν should be left in concord with βουλήν The sense of the passage would certainly be more natural, and the construction easier, if ἧς could be substituted for ἥν: but as MSS. afford no authority for the change, and as it does not appear absolutely necessary, it might be considered rash to adopt it.) which you can do but for one country, and for once, whether it prove successful or unsuccessful.

So the Athenians retired from the conference; and the Melians, having been left to themselves, as they still thought pretty nearly the same as they had maintained in the discussion, gave the following answer:

We neither think differently from what we did at first, Athenians, nor will we in a short space of time rob of its liberty a city which has now been inhabited seven hundred years; but trusting to the fortune which, by the favour of heaven, has hitherto preserved it, and to the help of man, especially of the Lacedaemonians, we will endeavour to save ourselves.

But we propose to you that we should be your friends, and the enemies of neither party; and that you should retire from our country after making such a treaty as may appear suitable for both sides.

Such then was the answer which the Melians gave. The Athenians, now departing from the conference, said:

Well then you are the only men who by these counsels, as appears to us, consider what is future as more certain than what is seen, and regard what is out of sight as already occurring, because you wish it; and having staked and relied most on [ [*]( These words are, I think, implied by the omission of the article before the following nouns.) such things as] Lacedaemonians, and fortune, and hopes, you will also be most disappointed.