History of the Peloponnesian War

For it is not fair in fact, as it is in profession. For if it be through your not siding with us that both the sufferer is defeated and the conqueror gains the victory, what else do ye but refuse, by the self-same standing aloof, to aid the one party for their preservation, and to prevent the other from behaving basely? And yet it were honourable for you, by joining those who are injured, and at the same time your own kinsmen, to guard the common interest of Sicily, and not to permit the Athenians, your friends forsooth, to do wrong.

In short, we Syracusans say, that it is of no use to afford certain information, either to you or to the rest, about what you know yourselves, as well as we; but we entreat you, and at the same time protest, if we do not prevail on you, that we are plotted against by Ionians, who are always our enemies, while we are betrayed by you, Dorians by Dorians.

And if the Athenians reduce us to subjection, though it is by your decisions that they will gain the victory, it is in their own name that they will enjoy the honour; and they will receive no other prize for the victory than those men who put the victory into their hands. If, on the other hand, we are the conquerors, you will also have to submit to the punishment due to the authors of our dangers.

Consider then, and choose at once, either immediate slavery without any peril, or the chance of gaining the victory with us, and so avoiding a disgraceful submission to these men as your masters, as also of escaping our enmity, which would be of no trivial kind.

Hermocrates spoke to this effect; and after him, Euphemus, the Athenian ambassador, as follows:

"Though we are come hither for the purpose of renewing our former alliance, yet, as the Syracusan orator has attacked us on that head, we must also address you on the subject of our empire, to show that we enjoy it on just grounds.

The strongest proof, then, of this he himself has mentioned, in his assertion that the Ionians have ever been hostile to the Dorians. And such too is the case. For we, who are Ionians, considered, with regard to the Peloponnnesians. who are Dorians, and more numerous than ourselves, and living near us, in what way we might be least subject to them.