On the False Embassy

Perhaps he will ask: Do you not retain, and shall you not retain through the peace, three hundred war-galleys with stores and money for them?

In reply to that, you have to reflect that Philip also has greatly strengthened his position owing to the peace, as regards his material resources in arms, in territory, in revenues, which last have increased largely.

And so indeed have ours, to some extent. But as to those other resources, of policy and of alliance,—and it is by them that all nations hold advantages for themselves or for stronger states—in our case, bartered away by these men, they have perished, or at least deteriorated: his are now formidable and far greater.[*](Section numbering in the Loeb varies starting in this section and continuing through to 110. Milestones representing the Loeb numbering are indicated.) It is surely unfair that, while Philip, thanks to these men, enjoys extended alliances and increased revenues, the advantages that we should in any case have gained from the peace should be reckoned by them as a set-off against those that they have sold. For our gains are not a compensation for our losses; far from it! No; what we now have would equally have been ours, and what we have not would have been added to us, but for these men.