Orationes 33

407. I have risen, men of Athens, with such a conviction of mind that, were it not too foolish a thing to say, I should be near to saying that I am still in doubt as to which side I should join; and that, if anyone rising a little later should convict me of slipping in my reasonings and should himself show something better, I should be the first to obey him: so great is the goodwill that I have toward neither side from any old standing. But what has made me both rise with confidence and incline now toward the other party, having first stated this, I shall at the same time indicate which side; and let me set forth, first of all, the chief point of the view which I hold about these matters. I, then, wish the Thebans to be ready for you against the Lacedaemonians, and the Lacedaemonians again against the Thebans, and that neither party fare more prosperously than is to the city's advantage. If, then, they had been established on equal terms, and the argument concerning both were the same, I should think there was no problem; but since so great an inclination of the scale has come about toward the Thebans, I fear the weakness of the one and the power of the other. If, then, it were necessary, by doing one thing, to set the one party right, and by another to bring the other down, first we should have a double task, and then each would have to be done at its own season; but since both have fallen into one and the same point, it seems to me best to use the convergence of the occasion, and to contribute as much to the one party as it is advantageous to take away from the other. For I hold that they, being made equal by us, will be occupied with their dealings toward one another; but that, if the one party be destroyed, the reckoning will then be with us for the victors. And from these reasonings I declare that what might seem absurd will come to pass: that, if we stand out 408. of the way of both, we shall be in danger against the one party, but, if we help the weaker, we shall for the rest stand in the middle, free of both. These, then, are the considerations on which I have ceased to be neutral, and on account of which I have chosen the Lacedaemonians. But your readiness for humanity, and your being beforehand in pitying the unfortunate before they even beg you, would perhaps not allow these things to be examined precisely. For I know of you that, when first the herald came announcing the battle—whom the Thebans sent to you crowned—you heard it with displeasure and grief, and were so far from rejoicing with them that you neither invited him to the prytaneum nor showed any other mark of humanity. So the old saying is true, that for those who individually meet misfortune there is, common to all, this good fortune underlying—the character of this city, by which they are saved. But indeed, the man who would remind you of what was done by the Lacedaemonians in the Decelean war—I shall ask him who were their partners in it; not the Samians, I think, but those whom he will think fit to help as though they were guiltless.

If, then, these things must be conceded for the sake of some occasion and of humanity, it is just that oblivion be common to both, and that one ought not to remit the complaint to those who from the very beginning were persuaded by them, and were eager to break off the war midway, and were then hindered from bearing a grudge, but to leave it standing against those who were ungracious to the end. But if one must accuse both—as I, by the gods, would no longer think right, unless someone could persuade me—why must one accuse those whom there is no separating from the others? For in all the things which one examining most strictly would call the worst, these men were partners with them.

And indeed, if one must pick something out and tell it, passing over the common deeds of the war, let us look at what was afterward done and resolved by each. For we shall find that what the Thebans resolved was the destruction of our city and its enslavement, and that no one should anywhere be left—I shrink 409. from adding the name to the blasphemy—and yet not even the Persian decided these things about us in former times, but thought it enough if he could have us willing to do what was commanded; whereas what the Lacedaemonians resolved was just these things which they now think fit to obtain from you: to dwell in their own land and suffer nothing irreparable. And indeed I consider with myself that, if the Lacedaemonians then had resolved the same things as the Thebans and had undertaken this deed, and some god had not held a hand over such a matter, what would have remained between us but for the Thebans now to seek whom they might summon against these others? And yet—for let me be granted to say this too without contention—if one looks at the Lacedaemonians with full justice, one will find that some pardon perhaps attaches to them, both for what was done in the war and if afterward they showed any ungraciousness. Why? Because to those who contend for empire and leadership the very figure of the war gives an excuse, if they are carried somewhat further; but those who contend for no such ambition, but are otherwise insolent and excessive—as the Thebans then were—anyone whatever would justly be indignant at, because they hold their ungraciousness without a face and use a wicked manner by nature. And indeed, if anyone thinks that the examination of these things has been passed over, but seeks precisely the pretext of the present war, I know that he judges the Lacedaemonians to be in the wrong and thinks one must side with the Thebans.

Now that it was Phoebidas who did these things, and that none of them was done from the common resolve, but that, when the Thebans themselves—those to whom the present state of things was not pleasing—summoned him, Phoebidas came in passing by and seized the Cadmeia, I neither altogether believe nor would I say; for it was possible for those at home, surely, when they heard of these things, to recall him, to fine him, to bring him out, to be seen indignant, which they are far from having done. Nevertheless, if we stood in the way of the Thebans 410. when they wished to obtain justice, we should be doing wrong in truth and not acting like ourselves; but since they have obtained this, and grasp after what lies beyond, I do not think we ought, under the pretext of justice, to concede to them a most unjust thing—to enslave the Peloponnese and the rest of the Greeks; for to destroy the Lacedaemonians means this. If, then, before the battle both had sent, asking us to help alike as now, I should have spoken for the Thebans—I say this without having deliberated. Why? Because I should have thought the invitation of the Lacedaemonians to be one of helping enslave the Thebans, but that of the Thebans to be one of obtaining justice from the Lacedaemonians; and this I should have held to have far the better case than that. But now, when the embassy has arrived at the moment when they have got the upper hand in what they seek, I do not see the manner of the help. But for my part—and let no one be vexed at the absurdity—even if at the beginning, both having sent, I had spoken for the Thebans, and then again after the battle both had sent as now, I should confidently bid them change sides. For when the war was being set up, I should have bidden us aid the wronged; but when the purpose for which we should have joined them was fulfilled, then of two things one: either I should have thought they must cease, or, being excessive, be again restrained by us; and by however much more eagerly we should earlier have helped them, by so much the more do I say we must now resist them. For since, having obtained the just things they championed, they do not cease their zeal, they themselves come over, by a just road, into the accusation of the Lacedaemonians, and the pretext of the war has changed hands, on account of which we should then have gone against those men. For they are not avenging what they have suffered, but seek to make greater what they have already achieved. So the justice they had has run its course in respect of which they would have obtained help, but the present is recognized to hold the rank of the unjust. Therefore they would justly be hindered by us. And then it is not even reasonable that, having helped enslave the Thebans to the 411. Lacedaemonians if they had fled to us then, we should now submit to help destroy the Lacedaemonians for these men. For it is far more fitting, O Zeus and gods, that the Thebans should desist on our account than that we should take part, on theirs, in such a deed.

For it is, it is indeed possible even for those who defend themselves to do wrong without measure; and if anyone, in the means by which he fills up his vengeance against the wrongs, overshoots, he becomes in turn a second aggressor. What I mean is this: the Lacedaemonians came against the Thebans—well. Then the Lacedaemonians have also paid the penalty to the Thebans. Here the complaint reaches its end. But whatever is done after this by the Thebans is, so to speak, the beginning and the circuit of a second injustice. And this is so not only in the case of cities, but all the affairs of private men too come under this principle. The man who, having done some wrong, was punished—this, so to speak, has become the dissolution of the wickedness; but if, having once taken vengeance, he then drives off and harries the unfortunate man, the laws bid that he himself now be punished—and justly. For this is for the nature of our whole race: that there should be some point for the wrongdoers, after which the anger of the sufferer must stand still. Since now let someone tell me: if we side with the Thebans, and the Lacedaemonians are once and for all overpowered, what is to hinder the Thebans from seeking again some other penalty which they may exact, and this being endless, forever, on account of the first complaint? But why do I argue these things so precisely? For even if the Lacedaemonians have done utterly terrible things, greater than any vengeance, the occasion, men of Athens, pleads for them, and the fact that it is not honourable for you to join in falling upon their misfortunes. For when more than a thousand of them are dead, and their allies have revolted, and the temples of the Thebans are adorned with their arms, and their hopes are suspended upon us alone, how is it worthy to become the slayers of these men with our own hands and not to help preserve the remaining resources? For if you yourselves, waging a war of your own, had wrought these things upon them, you would seem to me justly to stand here. But to help the Thebans accomplish the complete 412. destruction of their adversaries—how is this not to be shunned even to the word? Against these things let anyone bring forward the peace of Antalcidas and whatever he wishes. This matter of the peace the Lacedaemonians would buy, of all things at the highest price, to have spoken against them, considering the present need. For by how much more you blame that peace, by so much the more eagerly must you save them now. For it is written in it, surely, that the Greeks who inhabit Asia itself the King may do with as he wishes; and those who are vexed at this cannot neglect the present embassy of the unfortunate. For surely no single man would say that the forethought for the Greeks ought to be equal in the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians, looking, if at nothing else, at these very treaties with the King, of which theirs made the Greeks on the sea over to surrender, while ours keep the King away from the sea inland; nor is it the same thing for men shut up into necessity and longing for peace to concede these things, and for men, peace being established, willingly to overlook justice from a longing for war. But where it has even been written down that, concerning those in the King's land, it shall be permitted to the King to do whatever he wishes—a heavy and terrible thing—how is it not far more grievous that they themselves should help destroy, for the Thebans, the Greeks in Europe? For if for the Lacedaemonians, when hard pressed by war, to have written that, concerning those in the King's land, it should be permitted to the King to do whatever he wishes has been judged an accusation and a reproach, how is it endurable for you, being Athenians and masters of your own counsel, with your own hands to hand over the Greeks in Europe to the Thebans, and that the Lacedaemonians?—men from whom, if nothing else, this would take away at least the rank they once held.

There would now perhaps be the chief argument for those speaking on behalf of the Thebans, that you have already before made them your allies, and they will remind you of the expedition to Haliartus and the battle at Coronea. "Is it not absurd, then," they would say, "if you make friends of your enemies of that time, and enemies of your allies of that time, both at once?" But I am so far from thinking that I am opposing the Lacedaemonians that, if 413. I thought no one would speak for the Thebans, I should nevertheless have used these very examples on their behalf. For who does not know that then too we made the Thebans friends and allies, although they had been enemies and foes all the time before, and that the existing oppositions did not hinder us from joining and aiding them, when they seemed to us to be saying the same just things? That the former alliance is no hindrance to receiving the Lacedaemonians now is plain from this. But that, men of Athens, even by that very alliance it is necessary to aid the Lacedaemonians, and that for those who most of all remember the zeal then shown toward the Thebans there is most of all no choice but to change sides—this I shall show still more plainly than the former point. For if anyone should ask you, men of Athens, "How much money did the Thebans pay you to obtain the alliance?"—"Hush," you would say; "the Thebans pay us? Whence? Or what? And what others?" "How, then, did you receive them?" For they were not friends of old; you could mention no other pretext than the danger and the need, and that, if they were overlooked by us, they would straightway be on the side of the Lacedaemonians. If, then, some private intimacy had existed for you toward them, not even so would anyone justly censure us for being unwilling to share to the very end even in their faults. But perhaps you would have seemed to change, yet reasonably, making more account of your own good repute than of their gratitude. But the cause being what I said, on account of which you then sided with them, I should say that to fight on their side now too is to seem to change, but to choose the other party is to continue being the same, since both have exchanged each other's rank. But if anyone says he fears for the city, lest it incur a reputation for fickleness—first, he fears late; for why did he not reckon these things in the case of the Thebans before? Then, 414. let him be acquitted of this charge, but let him be persuaded of that other point: let him cease fearing things not to be feared and being august beyond the occasion—unless he will say that the steersmen too act contrary to themselves, and will blame them because they do not always make the same voyage as at the beginning, nor always the straight one, but continue being carried to the other side and contrary to before. "Man, I follow the need; I do the same thing; for I always go along with what carries me, having, according to the occasion, the same art and the same reckoning, whether I am carried hence thither or back again." This argument of the steersman, I think, is the very one I too must now state on behalf of the city.

But that you may know that I look simply at everything and mix in no contentiousness, I shall say something even greater than these things. If we remember the former alliance exceedingly, as we ought, and shrink now from changing sides, let us not make war on the Thebans, but yet let us not overlook the Lacedaemonians—I speak no riddle—but let us send men to forbid the Thebans to touch the Lacedaemonians. And if they hear this and obey, neither will anything whatever opposed to us have been done toward these, nor will the others be destroyed on this account, but the one party will remain friends as before, the other will be added to those, and both will feel gratitude—the one having had no trouble, the other saved through you. I hear, too, that long ago, before the Persian war, these very Thebans were reconciled with us, the battle being already about to take place, but the Corinthians happening to be present and reconciling both parties. But now, surely, the Thebans would more justly be persuaded by us when, an embassy of the Lacedaemonians summoning us against them, they see us taking such forethought for them as to exhort them and persuade them by argument, in order that we may not be compelled to do them any harm, and not to force them by arms, though it is in our power. If, then, they obey what I said, this is best; but if they do not give heed, they will blame themselves, no longer us. For we shall be seen both remembering the alliance and not wishing to dissolve it, while they, having overlooked these reckonings, and caring nothing if against those with whom they were formerly arrayed they now set their arms 415. in opposition. Do not, then, allow the orators to say to you the things which ought to be said to the Thebans, nor, if anyone undertakes to persuade you of things not your own, endure it. For how is it not absurd, when we are willing, if possible, to persuade even the Thebans, not only ourselves, that we ought not to part company, that—if the Thebans drag us out even against our will—we should counsel ourselves to keep quiet and judge those who flee from us to be allies?

Come then, by Zeus, if the Thebans had said these things to us when they came at the beginning—that if they should thrust off the war and the surrounding danger from themselves, they would make you their enemies and would hate you, unless you should once and for all permit them to destroy the Lacedaemonians and bring Greece under themselves—is there anyone who would not have thought them more wicked men and more deserving to perish? Let us not, then, give now, under that pretext, the things which they could not have obtained at the beginning on those terms; rather let us hinder the wholly opposite, unless indeed that very alliance must be thought to have been made for these ends. And I think the Thebans too are not so base nor so senseless—though they are Thebans—as to make more complaint now against you if they are hindered from destroying the Lacedaemonians than to remember gratitude for their own salvation, which through you came to them before. And I would gladly ask those speaking for the Thebans whether they say they are allies or have been. For if they are, why do they urge us to make them so? But if they have been, the Lacedaemonians have been so much earlier than these. Then it is not even reasonable to assert that they have been, and again to argue, as though the alliance still existed, bidding us not dissolve it. And indeed, that you renounced it the messenger of the victory knows, whom, coming after the battle, you received with no more honour than those of old sent by the barbarian. But of all who even with tears bewailed the Lacedaemonians on hearing the news I shall, remembering, say nothing.

416. What, then, is the cause? Are you so malicious and so base in your ways, and have you surpassed all men in wickedness and vice, that you are vexed at your friends and envy them if they do anything good? It is not so. A pretty thing, by Zeus, even to say! It is not so. But what is it? There is implanted in this city of old that which is in good repute among all men, which has not passed over to the Megarians here, who are our neighbours, nor to those who are second among the Greeks, these now-wretched Lacedaemonians, but which here was both born and came to its height straightway from the beginning. What, then, is this? An inclination toward the weak and a pity for the unfortunate, not empty but sufficient unto salvation. This neither allows the city to bear a grudge nor to examine who the unfortunate man is, but whenever it perceives someone faring ill, it straightway forgets what it has itself suffered. Therefore the very figure of misfortune is sufficient, for all men, as a kind of token toward the city. For this reason it received the Thebans too, and the Lacedaemonians, when first, in the time of the Heracleidae, it knew them to be unfortunate, it pitied. Now concerning the benefactions which one might say the Thebans showed toward us—that they did not join the Lacedaemonians in the expedition against the Piraeus, and that they received Thrasybulus—I shall blaspheme nothing, for I should be mad. And yet I once heard someone saying that they ought not to feel gratitude for their not joining the expedition rather than blame them, and—"yes, by Zeus," he said—even to hate them, for the reason on account of which they did this. For he asserted that they were vexed at having failed to destroy our city. But these things I leave to those who wish to say them; what do I myself say? If the Thebans were established in some danger, one might justly remind us of these things, not thinking it right to join an expedition against their city, just as they too did not before, against ours, with these same Lacedaemonians, when it was in a poor state. But 417. since the argument concerns the salvation of the Lacedaemonians, why must one lead you astray with these external things? For we ought by so much the more not to overlook them, by how much the greater is the disgrace if the Thebans did not shrink from appearing to share our grief when we fared ill, no summons having come to them from us, while we, being Athenians, should fall upon the misfortunes of the Lacedaemonians—men who have admitted by their embassy that their own affairs are nothing apart from us.

And indeed I shall not shrink from saying even this: that, unless the Thebans have received from us in return for these benefactions gratitude far greater—rather, altogether greater—we owe them everything. But is there any way, by Zeus, in which it seems to anyone equal or even similar, not to follow the Lacedaemonians when they invade, and to array oneself against the Lacedaemonians on their behalf, or both to receive the exiles—which is common to all men—and to contrive that those men's people shall not be exiled nor made homeless? These things, then, have been done by us for the Thebans in return for those: we both killed Lysander and set up a trophy and rendered Boeotia clear of enemies. Do they repay the benefaction by the very same measure? Or, even if we had done it on their behalf, could they ask anything greater in addition? I marvel, then, if we shall remember the kindnesses of the Thebans, but set nowhere the mind of the Lacedaemonians; which, if they had not then held it moderate concerning us, these later benefactions of the Thebans would have had no place. For all the deeds of the Thebans are overcome by this one thing alone by just so much as it was not possible for the Thebans themselves, or for all who wish it, to have us to benefit, once we were utterly destroyed; and by how much we could not have been more unfortunate, had we suffered the opposite of what the Lacedaemonians resolved, while there are many ways, as many show, in which we could have been benefited more greatly than afterward by the Thebans. For toward these latter things perhaps some other means might have been found even apart from them, but toward not suffering those things there was altogether need of the Lacedaemonians, on account of the fortune that then attended them—which I wish they had never had. For that fortune both undid our city when it 418. flourished, and brought those very men into their present calamities.

And let no one think that I say this—that you are safe through the Lacedaemonians; may they never fare so well! But it is the just forethought of the gods that saves and guards our city, men of Athens, and the good fortune that has been allotted to it from the beginning; but as for whatever came from men, the Lacedaemonians once took a hand in it, and the Phocians, and someone else too, I think, yet not least the Lacedaemonians, who themselves held the authority of the vote. Now, then, one must consider that this is that very occasion in which we ourselves were then established, and the judgement which we should then have thought fit for the Lacedaemonians to hold concerning us, hanging in such a danger and such a matter—this, since we have anticipated it, let us repay in like measure. And the Lacedaemonians have become our suppliants—they who formerly deliberated about you, and gathered the Greeks, and held land and sea, and they say, supplicating moderately, that they too ought to enjoy something of your nobility, and that you should have saved not the Thebans only, nor the other Greeks, but themselves as well. And if those who then helped with votes now think it right to be saved by you with arms, receive this most of all. For the rank of justice keeps the same account, but the manner of the benefaction, surpassing in dignity, will display the excess of your magnanimity. For the other favours have force according to the recipients, but the one which you will now render to the Lacedaemonians will all redound to yourselves. For to save with arms and war, by a counter-saving, those who were saved by a vote—this is what produces honour, and through which it shines forth that one is an Athenian and not some other of mankind. But if you too now had to vote about them in the same way, I should not rejoice with you for saving them, but should judge it the deed of those men. And indeed, when you saved the Thebans too, you did not, surely, render them like for like; and yet at that time you neither had abundance of triremes nor had you yet the man to raise the 419. walls, but the city was almost unguarded and bare; now, however, you see, surely, so many ships gathered in the Piraeus, you see these walls and all the other preparation by which war wishes to be furnished. And so great is your surplus that both parties agree that, to whichever side you join yourselves, to these the inclination of the scale will come.

I think, then, that this too must not be considered idly or unreasonably: that, if the Thebans do not destroy the Lacedaemonians when the occasion falls to them, but handle them with some fair and moderate judgement, it is the Thebans who win good repute instead of us. Than which what could be more shameful? But if they destroy them once and for all, it will be no trivial or chance loss to Greece that the Lacedaemonians should not exist; and this being such, there will be added the appearance that we are the cause—which is far greater than the former, if one may say so. Nor, indeed, can I expect that, being Thebans, they would spare them in anything whatever, if they get the occasion. For when I reflect on what they resolved concerning us, and that fine vote, and from what cause they first parted from them, I think the Lacedaemonians ought long ago to have been bewailed in advance, if they should come into such a danger. For neither is it likely that, concerning a war in which others took the lead, they cast that vote, but that this one, of which they themselves have become masters and champions—if it falls into their power—they will dispose moderately, or will treat with any mildness men whom they hate both on their own account and on ours, because they then spared us. For they did not hate us more on account of those men than they now hate those men both on their own account and on ours, because they spared us. Nor, then, do you seem to me reasonably to fear the Lacedaemonians, lest they give us trouble again, if they are saved. For if we should grant them to hope for the greatest things, surely they would not expect or pray for anything greater than to overpower us. This, then, they know precisely was never before of advantage to them, but when they took over the leadership both by land and by sea, then indeed the evils that beset them from men—to Corinth, to 420. Boeotia, again to Argos, running up and down Greece and being destroyed, until they shamefully begged even of the King of the Persians, and at the last, struck by a single battle, were brought low. For men, then, to whom it is plain that to fare as they would pray is not profitable, and to whom there is harm and danger in those with whom they must make war, by what could these men ever be so puffed up as to give themselves to such irrationality of affairs, or be willing to make war when about victory it would not be to their advantage? And what, hoping, would they seek again to take over the cities which, when they offered themselves, they were unable to hold? Neither would anyone dare, I think, to mount a chariot seeing the precipice, knowing that he is unable to stay seated, nor to embark upon so great affairs, from which, falling, he will straightway lie prostrate. For he who takes up a burden greater than himself, even if for the moment he bears it easily, after a little is destroyed, crushed by it. And the Lacedaemonians remember this too—with how great preparation and how great array they entered upon the former war, and what allies, and what dignity they had in those times.

And this too has not escaped them, that, had not the city itself stumbled about itself—partly by throwing itself into the war against the Sicilians, partly by losing its ships at Aegospotami through the carelessness of the generals—not even if they had taken over all mankind would they have gained anything whatever, but either, giving up, they would have begged us to break off the war, or, at the last, overpowered, they would have obeyed. But now, looking to what among all things, will they stir up so great a matter? What empire? What strength? What revenues? What noble means of war? There is none. Let us not, then, men of Athens, be seen fearing suppliant men. For it is shameful if anyone should hear this first, that the Athenians fear those who are seeking to be saved. But let us not even bring to mind, either to these very men or to any other of the Greeks, that we think fit to hold any such suspicion at all about them. By no means. But what do you think? Will the men who could not hold out against the Thebans without us 421. ever, trusting in something, come against us? And what seeking? That they may destroy us? But when they had the occasion, they did not do this. But because it was not to their advantage to have spared us? And indeed, for this very reason they will know that they have been saved. Then in order that they may have trouble to no purpose? But they are not so mad. For the sake of what, then, will they molest us? For not for the sake of being hated; I, for my part, cannot conceive it, become what I may. Since this too—how is it not absurd and monstrous, that men saved by you and obtaining things greater than they could have hoped should be thought likely to entertain any ungracious thought about us, even if they should take the empire and power of the King? Then if we shall fear those whom we benefit, in whom shall we have confidence? I do not see. The matter of the Lacedaemonians, then, of all safety being twofold, has both portions. For neither, surely, can they do us any harm, nor is it likely that, by these reckonings, they will wish to.

Let us look, then, at the matter of the Thebans too—whether it is equally free of fear if they destroy the Lacedaemonians, as the matter of those is if they do not suffer this. But who does not know that, if the Lacedaemonians are got out of the way, the war is for the rest transferred hither, and the reckoning of the Thebans now becomes with us? For none of us is persuaded that those men now seek anything else than to pass to the rank in which we, and the Lacedaemonians after us, came to be; nor are we so foolish as to think that the Thebans are more kindly disposed toward us than toward themselves; nor again so slack and supine that, the Lacedaemonians destroyed and half their object accomplished, they will then willingly abandon the rest. It is not so. But someone—I do not know who—reported to me even the other day, swearing, that they have already resolved both to build triremes and to embark upon the sea. For he said that Epaminondas tells them that there is no profit in the advantages on land unless they shall hold the sea too by their own means. These things, then, one may believe or not; but this, however, I too know clearly, and you no worse than I, that 422. the Thebans, having overpowered the Lacedaemonians, will turn against us; and if this shall be, we shall be in danger either with allies or alone. What sort of thing it must be reckoned to be left alone—why should I teach you? But if we shall have allies, those now present are better than any one would say we should then find. And indeed the figure is not the same. For then those—whoever they shall be—will seem to help us, but now we to save these. And upon both points I say this: by taking over these men you do not lose those who would then have come, for it is possible, surely, to have both; but it is not possible to say that those whom you would then use will be added to you now, after being overlooked. Nor, then, do I see those who would be willing to serve us eagerly at that time. For when you yourselves are seen giving up the Lacedaemonians, you must expect that the same will meet you from the rest as well. And indeed you will not even be able to accuse any of them. For when, having overlooked what is these men's, you yourselves use them so toward others, it remains for you to blush at failing. By how much better, then, is it to receive the war, having sure and manifest allies, and, settling your own affairs well, to seem to be taking forethought for the salvation of others, than to allow these to become as great as I said, and to flee the gratifying of these, and then to seek others who will do this for you later, if indeed any shall appear?

Now, as for our not failing of our hope if we side with the Lacedaemonians, I think it must be the concern of the Lacedaemonians. For to be proved the most wicked of men, and to have all men band together against them—which would come about if they attempt any revolution against their benefactors—concerns them, surely, not us. So that even if just now I was mistaken, and even if they should at some later time stir something up, they will have deliberated badly about themselves, not about us. But the forethought that the Thebans should not become strong you yourselves must, surely, take; for this is risked by you, no longer by them. Nor, indeed, if we ally with the Thebans, do I see any faith therein. For when 423. I reflect, of men who were formerly on the side of the Lacedaemonians, what they now attempt, I marvel whether they will even remember at all the help from you. For of what trophy, of what expedition, of what gathering, of what action did the Thebans fall short of the Lacedaemonians in time past? In what greater thing did they take the lead than those?—in nothing, unless one should mention the temples. Then, judging it a loss not to have destroyed these men completely, and on this account summoning us, their former enemies, will they keep their hands off us, who are friends of the occasion and made so by contrivance? And indeed it is not the same thing to have trusted the Lacedaemonians and to be deceived by the Thebans; for the very figure of the alliance is not the same. For by saving the Lacedaemonians you will seem to be noble and humane, but by choosing the Thebans, to be willing to be partners in greed and to help win the empire of Greece. And in a partnership of good men there is disgrace for those who play false, but in one of bad men so much disgrace also for those who are deceived. For to do wrong from hope of gain is a double reproach, when it turns out for a man contrary to his expectation. These things, then, we must, reckoning from afar, guard against—the occasion of deceit and of fears—and not deliberate about them at the moment when we shall not even have this in our power, nor wish to learn them precisely, but, while it is possible, foresee them and keep the Lacedaemonians as a kind of bulwark, judging the wisdom of the King wise, who in the last stages of the war led you on upon unequal terms, ever distributing the goodwill that suited himself to the weaker. For he knew, I think, that it was far better always, with one party, to harm the stronger from a position of advantage than once and for all to enter into a contest with those who had wholly prevailed.

The things, then, which those who think we ought to help neither side would say—let these stand for me against those speaking for the Thebans; but the points in which those bidding us choose the Thebans err—let these again stand against those who think fit to help neither side. For the city must, surely, be free of troubles and disturbance—nor would I say otherwise; but it will by no means be so, if you strengthen the Thebans. And if we guard against this, we must make these others equal to those against whom 424. they will be occupied. For if we ourselves shall not help the Thebans, but give up these others, I do not see the gain of it, but it is perhaps better to aid even the Thebans than neither side. For if we must have them as blameless allies and friends, let us fall short in nothing; but if we shun this, let us not do both—both make these men's affairs hopeless and those men hostile—but, it being open not to share with the Thebans in their greed, let us add the checking of these very same men; otherwise, neither will these have any profit from our nobility nor we from those men's greed. And we shall have deliberated carelessly about these and not properly toward the others; and the Thebans will inherit the prizes, but we the disgrace—which, if it must altogether be endured, it is better that it be not empty but for some gain, being the same disgrace. And then it will perhaps seem drowsy too for the city to stand aloof from such affairs, and, as though it were Seriphos or some other of the cities that are content to save themselves, to stand out of the middle. For to choose the nobler and better rank is both sensible, men of Athens, and honourable; but to withdraw and flee affairs once and for all—this has the rank already of idleness and sluggishness, not of wisdom nor of dignity at all. But do you not think, men of Athens, that even these Aeginetans here and the Megarians would have the sense for this—not to molest others nor to fall into troubles? But for you it is not possible to reckon thus. For the trophies do not allow it, nor the deeds of our fathers, nor the triremes which those men sent to the Ionians when they begged, which won the many splendid contests by land and by sea, through which our city raised itself as far above the rest as it had done before.

It is worth examining this too above all: with which it is more customary and more ancestral for you to be arrayed—whether ever with the Thebans or with the Lacedaemonians. Look, then, at these very trophies of our fathers and the sea-battles, that at Artemisium, that at Salamis, the battle at Plataea, the inscription of the trophy at 425. Marathon. And when I bid you look at these, I bid you look at this acropolis here and the Parthenon and the spoils, which, together with those with whom we won them, it is not holy now to give up, nor to help destroy those with whom we then had as partners. Come then: Greece has been afflicted, the King has shown clearly what mind he has about the war, the Thebans are deliberating about empire, and to this all know that we shall be opposed, and they have toward the barbarian an old benefaction and faith. If, then, the barbarian, either summoned confidently by the Thebans on this account, or even of his own counsel, should come hither again with an army, is it not better that the Lacedaemonians be safe and laid up against such an occasion and such a necessity, and that what befell the Lacedaemonian not be the case—that Greece be one-eyed? For one of them is said to have said this to the Thebans on our behalf, when they were bidding them destroy us. Many things, then, both ancient and great come over me, which are common to the cities with one another, apart from the league against the barbarian: such as the imparting of the mysteries to Heracles, the first of strangers; and how, when he departed from men, the same honours as the gods' were paid to him first among us; and the refuge of his children hither, and your championship and battle against Eurystheus who drove them; and at the last, Cimon's coming to Ithome and Tyrtaeus, before Cimon, to Sparta. Again, the puttings-down of tyrants by these men, and the intimacy toward the Alcmaeonidae, and countless such things come over me. But to enumerate and recount these is neither easy nor perhaps possible. But if anyone, men of Athens, running in somehow just now in the midst, should report to you that the inscription of the trophy at Marathon has been chiselled out, and, when you raised an uproar, should point out the man who did it with his own hand, and then that man should say that he had erased only the Lacedaemonians' part, but that the rest was safe and visible, I know that you would nonetheless be grievously and painfully affected. Do not, then, if someone should erase the name of the Lacedaemonians from the trophy, think you must be 426. bitterly and grievously affected, but yourselves help erase them, together with the Thebans, the inscription being that of Greece; rather reckon that, if affairs had come to such an occasion that the Thebans, having overpowered them, with you had set the matter of them wholly to the vote, what vote you would have cast. To destroy them? And who of those most ready to vote it would admit this very thing? But to save them, as they before saved you? How, then, will you now help destroy these very same men? Come: if this very thing I speak of should happen, and you should side with the Thebans, and, an assembly being held, they should bid you declare what must be done with the Lacedaemonians, either now or later, when there shall be nothing whatever left to them—what will you say, men of Athens? And what vote will you cast? To destroy those whom you resolved not to? Or to leave them safe? Then, in matters where they need a vote, you will justly cast the saving one; but these men, when it is in arms that the preserving lies, you will rather choose to help destroy? I would not pass over that affair of the Argives, on whose behalf of old you went out into this very Boeotia and did not permit these Thebans to be ungracious any further than the occasion, although you knew they had originally been wronged. These things the Lacedaemonians too, knowing them clearly, come now exhorting you against these same men—not on behalf of seven dead bodies of their own, but for the salvation of all that remain, as though henceforth these two things were owed by both of these: that the Thebans should be insolent, but that you should hinder it. And, having said the chief point, I now cease. You have, men of Athens, the Lacedaemonians—what you long since were eager for—present under your hand, and it remains for the city, having exacted justice, to add besides a reputation for humanity, if you wish; than which what could be sweeter? Or even to have become, by fortune, masters both of taking vengeance on and of saving those who gave offence? In view of these things, deliberate what you must. For if, abandoned by you, they shall not hold out, you will seem to have become the cause of no moderate matter; but if even by themselves they shall recover, it is better that the name come to you, having at once both gratitude from the Lacedaemonians and remembrance from all men, continuing forever.