Kitap 1
And thus Potidaea was now besieged with all their power, on both sides, and from the sea at the same time by ships that were blockading it.
Now Aristeus, when it was surrounded with works, and he had no hope of its escape, unless some movement from the Peloponnese, or something else beyond their calculation, should occur, advised all, except five hundred, to watch for a wind and sail out of it, that their provisions might hold out the longer; and he was willing himself to be one of those who remained. But when he did not persuade them, from a wish to provide what was the next best thing to be done, and in order that affairs out of the place might proceed in the best way possible, he sailed out, without being observed by the guard-ships of the Athenians.
And remaining amongst the Chalcidians, he joined in the other measures of the war; and laid an ambuscade near the city of the Sermylians, and cut off many of them; and sending to the Peloponnese, The original is a condensed expression, the participle πέμπων being understood, as is evident from chap. 57. 3, where it is expressed, δεδιώς τε ἔπρασσεν ἔς τε τὴν λακεδαίμονα πέμπων ὅπως, κ. τ. λ. endeavoured to contrive a way in which some assistance might be brought. After the works round Potidaea were finished, Phormio with his sixteen hundred men proceeded to ravage Chalcidice and Bottice, and took some of the towns also.
The Athenians then and Peloponnesians had had these previous grounds of complaint against each other; the Corinthians, because Potidaea, which was a colony of their own, and men of Corinth and from the Peloponnese in it, were being besieged; the Athenians against the Peloponnesians, because they had caused the revolt of a city which was their ally and tributary, and had come and openly fought with them in conjunction with the Potidaeans. The war however had not yet positively broken out, but at present there was a suspension of hostilities; for the Corinthians had done these things on their own responsibility alone.
When, however, Potidaea was being besieged, they did not remain quiet, as they had men in it, and were alarmed for the place. And immediately they summoned the allies to Lacedaemon, and came and cried out against the Athenians, as having broken the treaty, and as injuring the Peloponnese.
And the aeginetans, though they did not openly send ambassadors, for fear of the Athenians, yet in secret most of all urged on the war in conjunction with them, saying that they were not independent according to the treaty.
So the Lacedaemonians, after summoning any one of the allies besides, who said that in any other respect he had been injured by the Athenians, held their ordinary assembly, and told them to speak.
And others came forward and severally made their complaints, and especially the Megareans, who urged no few other grounds of quarrel, but most of all their being excluded from the ports in the Athenian dominions, and from the Attic market, contrary to the treaty.
And the Corinthians came forward last, after permitting the others first to exasperate the Lacedaemonians; and they spoke after them as follows.
"The trustiness of your policy and intercourse amongst yourselves, Lacedaemonians, renders you the more distrustful with regard to others, if we say any thing [against them]; and from this you have a character for sober-mindedness, but betray too great ignorance with regard to foreign affairs.
For though we often forewarned you what injuries we were going to receive from the Athenians, you did not gain information respecting what we told you from time to time, but rather suspected the speakers of speaking for their own private interests. And for this reason it was not before we suffered, but when we are in the very act of suffering, that you have summoned the allies here; amongst whom we may speak with the greatest propriety, inasmuch as we have also the greatest complaints to make, being insulted by the Athenians, and neglected by you. And if they were an obscure people any where The που in the original would perhaps be most fully expressed by our colloquial phrase, in some corner or other. who were injuring Greece, you might have required additional warning, as not being acquainted with them;
but as it is, why need we speak at any great length, when you see that some of us are already enslaved, and that they are plotting against others, and especially against our allies, and have been for a long time prepared beforehand, in case they should ever go to war.
For they would not else have stolen Corcyra from us, and kept it in spite of us, and besieged Potidaea; of which places, the one is the most convenient for their deriving the full benefit from their possessions Thrace-ward, Arnold translates it, so as to give you the full benefit of your dominion in the neighbourhood of Thrace. But could the Lacedaemonians be said to have any such dominion, at any rate before the expedition of Brasidas? and does not the πελοποννησίοις in the next sentence seem to he put emphatically, as in opposition to the Athenian dominion just alluded to? and the other would have supplied the largest navy to the Peloponnesians.
"And for these things it is you who are to blame, by having at first permitted them to fortify their city after the Median war, and subsequently to build the long walls; and by continually up to the present time depriving of liberty, not only those who had been enslaved by them, but your own allies also now. For it is not he who has enslaved them, but he who has the power to stop it, but overlooks it, that more truly does this; especially if he enjoys the reputation for virtue as being the liberator of Greece.
But with difficulty have we assembled now, and not even now for any clearly defined object. For we ought to be considering no longer whether we are injured, but in what way we shall defend ourselves. For the aggressors come with their plans already formed against us who have not made up our minds; at once, and not putting it off. Or, not merely threatening to attack us, as μέλλησις is used below.
And we know in what way, and how gradually, the Athenians encroach upon their neighbours. And while they think that they are not observed through your want of perception, Or, διὰ τὸ ἀναίσθητον ὑμων may be taken with θαρσοῦσι, and be rendered through your not perceiving it. they feel less confident; but when they know that you are aware of their designs, but overlook them, they will press on you with all their power.
For you alone of the Greeks, Lacedaemonians, remain quiet, defending yourselves against any one, not by exertion of your power, but by mere demonstration of it;
and you alone put down the power of your enemies, not when beginning, but when growing twice as great as it was. And yet you used to have the name of cautious; but in your case the name, it seems, was more than the reality. For we ourselves know that the Mede came from the ends of the earth to the Peloponnese, before your forces went out to meet him as they should have done; and now the Athenians, who are not far removed, as he was, but close at hand, you overlook; and instead of attacking them, prefer to defend yourselves against their attack, and to reduce yourselves to mere chances in struggling with them when in a much more powerful condition: though you know that even the barbarian was chiefly wrecked upon himself; i. e. he was himself, as it were, the rock on which his fortune split. Perished by his own folly."—Arnold. and that with regard to these very Athenians, we have often ere this escaped more by their errors than by assistance from you. For indeed hopes of you have before now in some instances even ruined some, while unprepared through trusting you.
And let none of you think that this is spoken for enmity, rather than for expostulation; for expostulation is due to friends who are in error, but accusation to enemies who have committed injustice.
"At the same time we consider that we, if any, have a right to administer rebuke to our neighbours; especially as the differences [between you and them] are great; of which you do not seem to us to have any perception, nor to have ever yet considered with what kind of people you will have to struggle in the Athenians, and how very, nay, how entirely different from yourselves.
They, for instance, are innovating, and quick to plan and accomplish by action what they have designed; while you are disposed to keep what you have, and form no new design, and by action not even to carry out what is necessary.
Again, they are bold even beyond their power, and adventurous beyond their judgment, and sanguine in dangers; while your character is to undertake things beneath your power, and not to trust even the sure grounds of your judgement, and to think that you will never escape from your dangers. Moreover, they are unhesitating, in opposition to you who are dilatory;
and fond of going from home, in opposition to you who are most fond of staying at home: for they think that by their absence they may acquire something; whereas you think that by attempting [more] you would do harm to what you have.
When they conquer their enemies, they carry out their advantage to the utmost; and when conquered, they fall back the least.
Further, they use their bodies as least belonging to them, for the good of their country; For this use ofἀλλότριος compare Homer, Odyss. 20. 346. mnhsth=rsi de\ Palla/s )Aqh/nha)sbesto\n ge/lw w)=rse. . . . oi( de\ gnaqmoi=si geloi/wn a)llotri/oisin: and Horace's imitation of it, Sat. 2. 3. 72. Cum rapies in jus malis ridentem alienis. but their mind, as being most peculiarly their own, for achieving something on her account.
And what they have planned but not carried out, they think that in this they lose something already their own; what they have attempted and gained, that in this they have achieved but little in comparison with what they mean to do. Then, if they fail in an attempt at any thing, by forming fresh hopes in its stead, they supply the deficiency: for they are the only people that More literally, possess in the same degree as they hope for. succeed to the full extent of their hope in what they have planned, because they quickly undertake what they have resolved.
And in this way they labour, with toils and dangers, all their life long; and least enjoy what they have, because they are always getting, and think a feast to be nothing else but to gain their ends, and inactive quiet to be no less a calamity than laborious occupation.
So that if any one should sum up their character, by saying, that they are made neither to be quiet themselves, nor let the rest of the world be so, he would speak correctly.
And yet when such is the character of this state that is opposed to you, Lacedaemonians, you go on delaying, and think that peace is not most lasting in the case of those men, who with their resources do what is right, while as regards their feelings, they are known to be determined not to put up with it, if they are injured: but you practise fair dealing on the principle of neither annoying others, nor being hurt yourselves in self-defence.
Scarcely, however, could you have succeeded in this, though you had lived by a state of congenial views: while as it is, your ways, as we just now showed you, are old-fashioned compared with them.
But, as in the case of art, improvements must ever prevail; and though for a state that enjoys quiet, unchanged institutions are best; yet, for those who are compelled to apply to many things, many a new device is also necessary. And for this reason the institutions of the Athenians, from their great experience, have been remodelled to a greater extent than yours.
At this point then let your dilatoriness cease: and now assist us, and especially the Potidaeans, as you undertook, by making with all speed an incursion into Attica; that you may not give up men who are your friends and kinsmen to their bitterest enemies, and turn the rest of us in despair to some other alliance.
And in that we should do nothing unjust, in the sight either of the gods who received our oaths Or, as Arnold, after Reiske and others, explains it, who are capable of feeling and observing. or of the men who witness [our conduct]: for the breakers of a treaty are not those who from destitution apply to others, but those who do not assist their confederates.
If, however, you will be zealous, we will stand by you; for neither should we act rightly in changing, nor should we find others more congenial.
Wherefore deliberate well, and endeavour to keep a supremacy in the Peloponnese no less than your fathers bequeathed to you.
To this effect spoke the Corinthians. And the Athenians, happening before this to have an embassy at Lacedaemon, and hearing what was said, thought that they ought to come before the Lacedaemonians, not to make any defence on the subject of' the charges which the states brought against them. but to prove, on a general view of the question, that they ought not to deliberate in a hurry, but take more time to consider it. They wished also to show how powerful their city was; and to remind the older men of what they knew, and to relate to the younger what they were unacquainted with; thinking that in consequence of what they said, they would be more disposed to remain quiet than to go to war.
So they came to the Lacedaemonians, i. e. to the government, whose consent was required before they could address the assembled people. and said that they also, [as the Corinthians had done,] wished to speak to their people, if nothing prevented. They told them to come forward; and the Athenians came forward, and spoke as follows.
"Our embassy was not sent for the purpose of controversy with your allies, but on the business on which the state sent us. Perceiving, however, that there is no small outcry against us, we have come forward, not to answer the charges of the states, (for our words would not be addressed to you as judges, either of us or of them,) but to prevent your adopting bad counsel through being easily persuaded by the allies on matters of great importance; and at the same time with a wish to slow, on a view of the general argument as it affects us, that we do not improperly hold what we possess, and that our state is worthy of consideration. Now as to things of very ancient date why need we mention them? since hearsay must attest them, rather than the eyes of those who will be our auditors.
But the Median war, and the deeds with which you yourselves are acquainted, we must speak of; though it will be rather irksome to us to be for ever bringing them forward: for when we performed them, the danger was run for a benefit, of the reality of which you had your share; and let us not be deprived of the whole credit, if it is of any service to us.
Our words, however, will be spoken, not so much for the purpose of exculpation, as of testimony, and of showing with what kind of a state you will have to contend, if you do not take good counsel.