Orationes 35

448. I have come forward, men of Athens, to consider together with you for which side I should speak. And I think that you too would act rightly if you should attend, not to those who decided long ago, nor to those who follow their own bent, but to those who await the consequences that come from reasoning. For to give the same counsel both to you and to oneself — this, it seems to me, is to consider the matters in common, without being prejudged. Now the Spartans, as you have heard and as I say, broke the treaty by seizing the Cadmea, and made a display of greed no less than the Thebans did when they once entered Plataea; while the Thebans have become so strong that being wronged has worked out to their advantage. This being so, the accusation lies against the Spartans, but the fear is in the Thebans. If, then, we are judging between them, we vote that the Spartans have done wrong and have justly suffered what they have suffered; but if there is mixed in something of deliberation on our own behalf too, we shall not aggrandize the Thebans, nor make ourselves the heirs of the Spartans' folly. For we shall consider, not whether they will destroy them justly, but we shall fear whether they will be able to do this same thing to us unjustly; and the example which has now made us sympathize with the Thebans we shall not wish to come round upon us, once the things that now pull us the other way are out of the way. Charges, men of Athens, you have many against the Thebans, and many against the Spartans; and against which you have more and greater I do not dispute, except that I know this — that if the Thebans had succeeded in one of the things they attempted, we should not now be deliberating. But I will let pass that which did not even happen in deed, by the great providence of some god; and again it comes over me that not even of this very thing are the Spartans 449. wholly guiltless. For their bringing the city to such a pass that the Thebans were able to make such a declaration about it justly subjects them to blame through their complicity. But of bringing us to this the Thebans too have a share, who fought the war along with them; whereas in the matter of sparing them henceforth, the Spartans no longer have these men here as partners. And indeed I will not even admit this — that it was one of the Thebans who said these things. For what they previously did to Plataea leaves them no such retreat or pretext, nor shows that the argument about the vote concerning us is of this kind. And they might say also, about the ancient charge, that it did not come from all of them, but that their leaders medized; but if, in the matters in which they betrayed the Greeks, and in which they destroyed such and such men, and in which they intended to destroy us, doing things consistent with those first deeds — and if they have been at all ungenerous in anything — for these things they will put forward their leaders, but whenever anyone mentions only the Piraeus, they will all come forward concerning the things about which one or two men have spoken, then to no purpose are they all called simple-minded who are in the highest degree wise. And it seems to me unreasonable that, when we have charges against both, we should have pursued the Spartans and sought to take satisfaction of them, but should let the Thebans go altogether, and so far exceed in being angry at the former as to think we shall be doing wrong if we do not stand by these others to the very end. For I think we ought to punish the Spartans up to this point — up to the point of not letting the Thebans go altogether scot-free. And I fear lest, by becoming allies of the Thebans, we destroy our own existing safeguards. For when I examine the ancient charges which the Greeks brought against us, I find them containing nothing else but this — that we treated some of them immoderately.

Now all the things that anyone might then have laid to our charge, if one were to put them together in one, do not even come near the present undertaking. For who would say that to be seen willing to destroy the Spartans is not, of all the things then disagreeable to our subjects, 450. far greater and harsher? So that how those who were then displeased at those things will follow us, I for one cannot see. For even if some of them hate the Spartans — granted that all of them have come to feel this, and indeed perhaps the greater number do, on account of the harmosts and the oppression then coming from Lysander — yet up to the point of not having the power to do the same thing, they perhaps hate them, each for the sake of their own safety; but to see them destroyed altogether, they do not, I think, wish, knowing that it is something of an ornament to Greece that the city of the Spartans should exist. And indeed we ought not to deliberate about these matters on equal terms with the Thebans. For it is far more fitting for them, for small causes, to take the extreme penalty, than for you, for the greatest, a moderate one. For if anyone reckons in the character of each along with the deed, he will judge theirs moderate, even if it be most harsh, and yours the greatest, even if it be moderate: so much do you surpass in benevolence, and they in cruelty. And then it is an old habit with them to care nothing for the common good of Greece, but to look only to where they shall get some advantage; whereas to you, being and being supposed to be the champions of the common rights, it is not permitted to overlook such things for the sake of private anger or grievance. And to that question — whether it befits the men from the Piraeus or those from the city to save the Spartans — I for my part would answer that it befits both, if indeed they are Athenians. For neither has this any reason: that we ourselves should have sworn and been bound by strong pledges that we would think the same and not bear malice against one another, while the Spartans, by being destroyed, stir up the memory of those very things which we agreed to bury together, and that we should not reckon nor consider that the man who examines these things exactly destroys the trustworthiness of the agreements. And indeed neither do those who fear lest the Thebans, having failed to get help from us, should summon the King, fear with a sensible fear. Rather, they seem to me to have suffered something strange, fearing lest the Thebans should find some allies, while persuading you to become these allies to them, 451. and not reckoning this — that they would have been better men, if they thought it a terrible thing for some benefit to accrue thus to the Thebans, in preventing it rather than in providing it. But as it is, just as though one ought to choose those whom one fears lest someone benefit, and not those whom one would pray for others besides to join, so they give this advice. And yet if they cannot prevent the King from helping, at least they could refrain from summoning you. But I do not think the Thebans are so senseless or out of their minds that, while making war on the Spartans for the sake of empire, they should come to terms with the King over slavery. For it is ridiculous to seek to destroy these men, that they may not be in their way, but to call in that man, on the ** terms by which they know they will have him as their master. For by so much will they deliberate better about us and the Spartans, in summoning the King as an ally, than they deliberate about themselves, by as much as they will at least leave us the means of warding him off, while they themselves, not even taking up arms, will at once stoop beneath him; and us, if indeed he prevails, he will have prevailed over through them, while them he will already have under his power before us, through themselves. But they would be mad if they wished this.

And indeed, if anyone thinks they take courage from their ancient friendship and alliance with the barbarian, these very things they will most fear. For they know that then too they gained no profit of any good things, and, having yielded up what they had to him, received first the King himself, and after that Mardonius his viceroy, who, encamped with his cavalry and a countless host, kept on, partly ravaging, partly reaping their land, and used the city as a camp, and gave to no one the least share of free speech; so that there was nothing more wretched at that time than the Thebans, holding a reproach among the Greeks, and being grievously crushed by the barbarians. They will not, then, wish to come again to the experience of such ill fortune, nor to beg the King to send down to them a man who, encamping in Boeotia and becoming leader of the war, will not allow them so much as to mutter. And then too, having won a victory 452. such as theirs, and having become illustrious, they would shun, I think, to take so humble a posture as to go back to the barbarian and an ancient stain. And altogether this suspicion has no reason. For where one of two things must be — either that, conquering, they have conquered for another and against themselves, or that, conquered, as happened before too, they are left and are in our power — for which of these would they need the King? And indeed, as things now are, if they are struck down, they will have some expectation of being saved again through us, knowing that this is what happened to themselves before and now to the Spartans; but if they call in the barbarian and fail, they know they will utterly perish. How then will they not choose to contend by themselves — which presents to them a pure victory and a hopeful disaster — rather than that which, making their good fortune profitless, will have the matter past remedy, namely to take the King as partner? And then, too, they are shut up into the necessity of not playing the fool even if they wished. For the Eleans and Arcadians who are now with them, if they perceive them bringing in the barbarian, will plainly not stand by them, but will suspect and guard themselves, knowing on the one hand that the extreme danger will come upon them, and on the other the disgrace, if him against whom they were formerly arrayed alongside the right-minded Greeks they should now help train up against themselves for the Thebans. The Thebans, then, seem to me more likely, on account of their present allies, to neglect the King, than, for his sake, to overlook these. And altogether, men of Athens, if now, while the Spartans are safe, we fear lest the Thebans go over to the King, what shall we do when we no longer have even these as partners, but are left alone between the Thebans and the barbarians? For if you have some strong guarantor that, when the Thebans have destroyed the Spartans, you will not at once be subject to them, and that they will not come against this city — it is indeed a terrible thing, by Zeus the god of freedom worshipped at Plataea, and by the monuments of those who fell there, the common ancestors of both, to overlook the city of the Spartans cast out of Greece, and that too by the Thebans; nevertheless, let this 453. impiety be ventured by me in speech — let us abandon them, men of Athens, and overlook them, setting down no reckoning; do you wish me to say it — let us help destroy them too? Or is this by no means to be done? But if what the Thebans have done toward us does not yet hold such intimacy and familiarity as to be greater and more than what they formerly had toward the Spartans — of which they are now far from remembering — and if there is no satiety of good fortune for men, but those who have succeeded in the greatest things crave the greatest; and if, being eager for dominion, it is likely that they fear our city far more than that of the Spartans, both for its high spirit and for its experience of affairs and for its keenness and its tireless presence in all things; and if, having conceived this, it follows that they seek to put it out of the way; and if in all things the exact pledge is not that which makes one unwilling to do wrong, but that which makes one unable even if one wishes — if these things appear so, what hinders us at once from saving the Spartans and securing the city's safety, and acquiring besides a reputation for benevolence, magnanimity, and courage? For in saving them without bearing malice there are these three things tending to honour.

Now as to the objection that the Spartans are not under the same fortune as we, and that we must save them by our vote but destroy them by our arms — against this hair-splitting, or rather perplexity (for I hesitate to call it stupefaction), it is not hard to find a simple and clear argument. If it were possible, men of Athens, to husband the matter, and to bring them low in the war up to this point, up to the point of keeping them till there is room for a settlement, perhaps one might have listened to this; but since it is not in our power thus to cut the war short, what shall we do, if once we overshoot the mark? Or shall we change our minds? And what good is that, when the opportunity is past? Since even now one battle, I suppose, has stripped them of everything — their allies, their helots, the faith of the neighbouring peoples, simply the position on which they had stood. And a stumble upon what is rotten makes perception easy. If, then, the rest are again worsted in one other battle, what hinders that, in a small 454. part of a single day, everything of theirs be utterly undone, and all those of military age perish, and the city be taken — and that too unwalled — and children and women be led away, and the matter, so to speak, be finished before it comes to deliberation and discourse? Since even now it is to this very thing that the Thebans summon you — to help destroy them. For to what else could one say, where the discourse has been about the city itself? We must, then, deliberate at once, and not wait for things that will nowhere come to pass. "By Zeus, but we shall seem faithless to the Thebans if we do not help." Far more so, if, having helped, we do not do the things for which we were called in. What hinders us, then, from consenting to this, if it seem good to them — I mean such things as razing the city, enslaving it, killing all the children and women? For it is to this they summon us. I will assume, then, that the matter will both wait for us and not anticipate us with their being destroyed beforehand, and that a vote will be proposed, as though this were owed by some necessary cycle to all enemies. If, then, when we propose a vote to save the Spartans, the Thebans are not persuaded and do not consent — and this needs no demonstration — will anything else remain but to stand apart and be at odds? Then this is the beginning of war and troubles; and the Spartans either have perished beforehand, if the Theban cause prevails, or will await the decision of the war, if we are able to rescue them. For it is necessary that, either with them having suffered something contrary to our purpose, we go against the Thebans, or, with them preserved by us, that the Thebans come against us in anger. Which, then, is better — to make war later on the Thebans for the shadow of the Spartans, when they can no longer be partners with us, or have utterly perished, or to wage the straight and noble war on their behalf, while they are still safe? I, for my part, think the latter. And if they have not had experience of the same fortune as we, this too is most of all in your favour. For that they will come to a far worse condition, should you wish it, has been shown to all; 455. but by preventing it, you will be thought both to have taken your revenge, by the fact that, had you wished, you could easily have done so, and to have displayed your magnanimity, by the fact that you did not need to. So that instead of one thing you will have both — both your revenge and the appearance of being gentle, which from the beginning has been your character.

And indeed, men of Athens, that they have suffered far more terrible things than those they once did to you, I will easily show. We at least, doing and suffering, so to speak, lived on through many contests and battles, harming one another; but they, worsted in a single one, have fallen away from everything. And it is plain from this too: for they deprived us of the hegemony at sea, but they themselves, having held both, have now let them go. So that if to be deprived of more is the sign of a greater calamity, the present calamity of the Spartans is greater than that which formerly beset us. Nor, again, do I understand the rank of the alliance with the Thebans. For they themselves, as you see, are at the head of the war, but they want you in the part of an appendage. To yield to them the leadership, then — judge for yourselves what sort of thing this is for you, remembering the trophy which you once set up at Oenophyta; while to claim the leadership yourselves — let this not be plain ungenerousness. For having been summoned by them, and they being the men who have wrought the greatest deeds, to dispute about the leadership will seem not free of that charge. But those who urge to crush the Spartans, and say we must not let up, I wish to ask this: if the Thebans do not give us the hegemony, do you bid us be their allies in the rank of subjects? "By Zeus, but they will give it." Not these men, so long as they see the shields of the Spartans hanging up among them. But if it is possible to guess both ways, whence and how shall we know the truth? For if they give it, one cannot say we ought any the more to make war on them; but if they do not consent, who would say we must endure it? If, then, it should fall out for us to decide to attach ourselves to the Thebans, but, when the difference I speak of arises, to stand apart, will anything else have happened than that we have overlooked these men too, and are in collisions and grievances with those others, and can neither 456. return to these nor find what we must do? But if this prevails, with all agreeing, that each in turn should lead — say, the Thebans, the Argives, the Eleans, the Arcadians, and you — a fine thing indeed for Athenians, to draw lots with all mankind for the hegemony, and to rule the Greeks in rotation, as though we had divided up some other portion or feast-club! And which is better — to take in turn the fifth part, if it so chance, of the leadership, and for all the rest to remain ruled by those I named, or to receive the Spartans on a half-share and to be two parties at the head, into which from the beginning Greece has been divided? For you do not fear, surely, that the Phliasians will dispute with you; and I do not yet say we must receive the Spartans on this footing — I do not lay this down, but I think most likely that they will yield even altogether; and, by Zeus, I for one urge it, if indeed they truly need us and have abated something of their pride; or else I would say to their envoys that we shall choose the Thebans, if those will hearken to these terms; but if not, it is more moderate, men of Athens, to receive the Spartans on equal terms than to submit to such a disordered partnership with the Thebans. I think, then, that this too befits you to consider — how you may not come into the same charges as the Spartans, nor imitate the very things you justly blame. For it is no small accusation against them that they helped these very Thebans destroy Plataea and handed it over, and again, at the last, that they gave up the Ionians in those agreements with the King. Do not, then, think that helping the Thebans destroy Sparta will be a fine thing to be told of, nor, while blaming the Spartans because they gave up your colonists to the King, yourselves give up your very selves to the Thebans; and you will give yourselves up, if you put out of their way for them the Spartans, against whom they are now occupied. I will add still a little more: if the Spartans, having failed of you, shall find other allies, what greater shame could there be of all than this — first to have sought certain others, and then to have found those who would help preserve Sparta itself, when there are Athenians? But if they shall obtain 457. no other helpers, you must not neglect them whom alone they have. And I pray for them, if you will fight alongside them, salvation and victory; but if you will abandon them, that they perish rather than recover through others, that our reproach may be a simple one. These things have seemed good to me, examining both sides; and now, men of Athens, my part at least may be plain to you.