For the People of Megalopolis

but they want it to be generally supposed that they are co-operating with each state to recover the territory that it claims, so that when they march against Messene on their own account, all the others will join heartily in the expedition, or else will put themselves in the wrong by making no adequate return for the support they have enjoyed in regaining what each state claimed as its own.

But my own impression is that, in the first place, without subjecting any of the Arcadians to Sparta, our city may recover Oropus with the help both of the Lacedaemonians, if they choose to act justly, and of all who think they ought not to let the Thebans keep other people’s property. But supposing, on the other hand, it should become clear to us that unless we let the Lacedaemonians subdue the whole of the Peloponnese, we shall not be able to take Oropus, then I think it the better policy, if I may say so, to let Oropus go, rather than sacrifice Messene and the rest of the Peloponnese to the power of Sparta. For I do not think that Oropus would be the only subject of dispute between us, but also—. However, I will pass over what I intended to say; only I fancy there are many dangers ahead of us.[*](He seems to contemplate a renewed attempt of Sparta to establish her supremacy, involving perhaps a second Peloponnesian war. He over-estimates Sparta’s power of recovery.)

But further, with regard to any acts which they say the Megalopolitans have committed for the sake of the Thebans somewhat against your interests, it is ridiculous to make these now the count of an indictment, but when they want to become friends and make you some reparation, to look askance at them and devise means of preventing this, and not to realize that the more zealous they show themselves to have been in the cause of the Thebans, the more justly would these very speakers incur your anger, if they deprived the city of such useful allies, when they came to you before applying to Thebes.

But these, I take it, are the allegations of men who want once again to drive the Megalopolitans elsewhere for an alliance. Now I know, as far as reasoning and conjecture can teach me, and I think that most of you will agree with me, that if the Lacedaemonians take Megalopolis, Messene will be in danger; and if they take Messene also, I say that we shall find ourselves in alliance with Thebes.

Surely it is more honorable and satisfactory that we should win the alliance of the Thebans on our own account and resist Spartan ambition, than that we should shrink from rescuing the allies of Thebes and abandon them now, only to rescue the Thebans in the end, and to be kept moreover in perpetual alarm for ourselves.

For I cannot regard it as a pledge of our security, that the Lacedaemonians should seize Megalopolis and grow great once more, seeing as I do that even now they have not taken up arms to avenge an injury, but to recover the power that once was theirs; and what their ambition was in the day of their power, you know perhaps better than I, and will distrust them accordingly.

I should like to ask those speakers who profess hatred of the Thebans and of the Lacedaemonians, whether they hate them in either case for your sake and in your interests, or whether they hate the Thebans for the sake of the Lacedaemonians and the Lacedaemonians for the sake of the Thebans respectively. If the latter, you must not take the advice of either party, because they are both mad; but if they allege your interests, why do they unduly forward the interests of those other states.

For it is surely possible to humble the Thebans without strengthening the Lacedaemonians; nay, it is much easier. How it can be done, I will try to explain.

Everyone knows this much, that all men, even against their wishes, are, up to a certain point, ashamed not to do what is just, but make a display of opposition to injustice, especially in cases where there are definite victims; and we shall find that what ruins everything—the root in fact of all evil—is unwillingness to act justly under all circumstances.