4–1
For our fathers, when they undertook the Medes, did from less beginnings, nay abandoning the little they had, by wisdom rather than fortune, by courage rather than strength, both repel the barbarian and advance this state to the height it now is at. Of whom we ought not now to come short but rather to revenge us by all means upon our enemies, and do our best to deliver the state unimpaired by us to posterity.
Thus spake Pericles. The Athenians, liking best of his advice, decreed as he would have them, answering the Lacedaemonians according to his direction, both in particulars as he had spoken and generally, that they would do nothing on command, but were ready to answer their accusations upon equal terms by way of arbitrament. So the ambassadors went home, and after these there came no more.
These were the quarrels and differences on either side before the war, which quarrels began presently upon the business of Epidamnus and Corcyra. Nevertheless there was still commerce betwixt them, and they went to each other without any herald, though not without jealousy. For the things that had passed were but the confusion of the articles and matter of the war to follow.