Kitap 1
For in their land consider that you have nothing else but a hostage; and the more so, the better it is cultivated. You should therefore spare it as long as possible, and not, through having reduced them to desperation, find them the more difficult to subdue.
For if we are hurried on by the complaints of our allies, and ravage it while we are unprepared, see that we do not come off in a manner more disgraceful and perplexing to the Peloponnese [than we should wish Or the comparative may perhaps be used for the positive. ].
For complaints, both of states and individuals, it is possible to settle: but when all together have, for their own separate interests, undertaken a war, of which it is impossible to know how it will go on, it is not easy to effect a creditable arrangement.
"And let no one think it shows a want of courage for many not at once to advance against one state.
For they too have no fewer allies who pay them tribute; These words are only applicable to the allies of the Athenians and war is not so much a thing of arms as of money, by means of which arms are of service; especially in the case of continental against maritime powers.
Let us first then provide ourselves with this, and not be excited beforehand by the speeches of the allies; but as we shall have the greater part of the responsibility for the consequences either way, so also let us quietly take a view of them beforehand.
"And as for the slowness and dilatoriness which they most blame in us, be not ashamed of them. For by hurrying [to begin the war] you would be the more slow in finishing it because you took it in hand when unprepared:
and at the same time we always enjoy a city that is free and most glorious; and it is a wise moderation that can best constitute this. For owing to it we alone do not grow insolent in success, and yield less than others to misfortunes. We are not excited by the pleasure afforded by those who with praise stimulate us to dangers contrary to our conviction; and if any one provoke us with accusation, we are not the more prevailed on through being thus annoyed.
We are both warlike and wise through our orderly temper: warlike, because shame partakes very largely of moderation, and courage of shame; and wise, because we are brought up with too little learning to despise the laws, and with too severe a self-control to disobey them; and are not over-clever in useless things, so that while in word we might ably find fault with our enemies' resources, we should not go against them so well in deed; Or, should not so well follow up our words with deeds. —The following infinitive νομίζειν depends upon παιδευόμενοι understood again.
but are taught to think that our neighbours' plans, I have followed the punctuation and interpretation of Göller and Arnold in their last edition; though not with a perfect conviction of its correctness, as I doubt whether the τε has any place before παραπλησίους και taken in this sense. But see Göller's note.—According to Haack and Poppo it would be, that our neighbours' plans are very similar to our own, and that the chances of war, etc. and the chances which befall in war, are very similar as things not admitting of nice distinction in language. But we always provide in deed against our adversaries with the expectation of their planning well and must not rest our hopes on the probability of their blundering, but on the belief our own taking cautious forethought. Again, we should not think that one man differs much from another, but that he is the best who is educated in the most necessary things.
These practices then, which our fathers bequeathed to us, and which we have always retained with benefit, let us not give up, nor determine hurriedly, in the short space of a day, about many lives, and riches, and states, and honours, but let us do it calmly; as we may do more than others, on account of our power.
And send to the Athenians respecting Potidaea, and send respecting those things in which the allies say they are injured; especially as they are ready to submit to judicial decision; and against the party which offers that, it is not right to proceed as against a guilty one. But prepare for war at the same time. For in this you, will determine both what is best, and what is most formidable to your adversaries.
Archidamus spoke to this effect; but Sthenelaidas, who was one of the ephors at that time, came forward last, and spoke before the Lacedaemonians as follows.
As for the long speech of the Athenians, I do not understand it; for though they praised themselves a great deal, in no part did they deny than they are injuring our allies and the Peloponnese. And yet if they were good men then against the Medes, but are bad ones now against us, they deserve double punishment for having become bad instead of good. But we are the same both then and now;
and shall not, if we are wise, overlook our allies' being injured, nor delay to assist them; for there is no longer delay in their being ill-treated. Others have in abundance riches, and ships, and horses;
but we have good allies, whom we must not give up to the Athenians, nor decide the question with suits and words, while it is not also in word that we are injured; but we must assist them with speed and with all our might. And let no one tell me that it is proper for us to deliberate who are being wronged.
It is for those who are about to commit the wrong that it is much more proper to deliberate for a long time.
Vote then, Lacedaemonians, for war, as is worthy of Sparta; and neither permit the Athenians to become greater, nor let us betray our allies; but with the help of the gods let us proceed against those who are wronging them.
Having spoken to this effect he himself, as ephor, put the question to the assembly of the Lacedaemonians.
As they decide by acclamation and not by vote, he said that he did not distinguish on which side the acclamation was greater; but wishing to instigate them the more to war Because individuals might be afraid of openly opposing the popular wish, which was decidedly for the war. by their openly expressing their views, he said, Whoever of you, Lacedaemonians, thinks the treaty to have been broken, and the Athenians to have been guilty, let him For another instance of a compound of ἵστημι used in the same pregnant manner as ἀναστήτω is here, see I. 101. 2. ἐς Ἰθώμην ἀπέστηταν rise and go yonder (pointing out a certain place to them); and whoever does not think so, let him go to the other side.
They arose and divided, and there was a large majority who thought that the treaty had been broken.
And having summoned the allies, they told them that their own opinion was that the Athenians were in the wrong; but that they wished to summon all the allies also, and to put it to the vote; that after general consultation they might declare war, if they thought fit.
They then, after having settled this, returned home; as did the ambassadors of the Athenians afterwards, when they had despatched the business they had gone on.
This decision of the assembly, that the treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of the continuance of the thirty years' truce, which had been concluded after the war with Euboea.
Now the Lacedaemonians voted that the treaty had been broken, and that war should be declared, not so much because they were convinced by the arguments of the allies, as because they were afraid that the Athenians might attain to greater power, seeing that most parts of Greece were already under their hands.
For it was in the following manner that the Athenians were brought to those circumstances under which they increased their power.
When the Medes had retreated from Europe after being conquered both by sea and land by the Greeks, and those of them had been destroyed who had fled with their ships to Mycale; Leotychides, king of the Lacedaemonians, who was the leader of the Greeks at Mycale, returned home with the allies that were from the Peloponnese; while the Athenians, and the allies from Ionia and the Hellespont, who had now revolted from the king, stayed behind, and laid siege to Sestos, of which the Medes were in possession. Having spent the winter before it, they took it, after the barbarians had evacuated it; and then sailed away from the Hellespont, each to his own city.
And the people of Athens, when they found the barbarians had departed from their country, proceeded immediately to carry over their children and wives, and the remnant of their furniture, from were they had put them out of the way; and were preparing to rebuild their city and their walls. For short spaces of the enclosure were standing; and though the majority of the houses had fallen, a few remained; in which the grandees of the Persians had themselves taken up their quarters.
The Lacedaemonians, perceiving what they were about to do, sent an embassy [to them]; partly because they themselves would have been more pleased to see neither them nor any one else in possession of a wall; but still more because the allies instigated them, and were afraid of their numerous fleet, which before they had not had, and of the bravery they had shown in the Median war.
And they begged them not to build their walls, but rather to join them in throwing down those of the cities out of the Peloponnese; not betraying their real wishes, and their suspicious feelings towards the Athenians; but representing that the barbarian, if he should again come against them, would not then be able to make his advances from any strong hold, as in the present instance he had done from Thebes; and the Peloponnese, they said, was sufficient for all, as a place to retreat into and sally forth from.
When the Lacedaemonians had thus spoken, the Athenians, by the advice of Themistocles, answered that they would send ambassadors to them concerning what they spoke of; and immediately dismissed them. And Themistocles advised them to send himself as quickly as possible to Lacedaemon, and having chosen other ambassadors besides himself, not to despatch them immediately, but to wait till such time as they should have raised their wall to the height most absolutely necessary for fighting from; and that the whole population in the city, men, women, and children, should build it, sparing neither private nor public edifice, from which any assistance towards the work would be gained, but throwing down every thing.
After giving these instructions, and suggesting that he would himself manage all other matters there, he took his departure.
On his arrival at Lacedaemon he did not apply to the authorities, but kept putting off and making excuses. And whenever any of those who were in office asked him why he did not come before the assembly, Or, about his not coming, according to Arnold, who objects to the common mode of explanation, by understanding διὰ before ὅτι. he said that he was waiting for his colleagues; that owing to some engagement they had been left behind; he expected, however, that they would shortly come, and wondered that they were not already there.
When they heard this, they believed Themistocles through their friendship for him; but when every one else i.e. those who came from Athens, and could therefore speak to the fact. κατηγορούντων is thought by some to mean, charging him with the fact: but with that signification it would require a genitive case after it, (e.g. ch. 95. 7) and as none is expressed, I have preferred taking it in the more general sense. came and distinctly informed them that the walls were building, and already advancing to some height, they did not know how to discredit it.
When he found this, he told them not to be led away by tales, but ratter to send men of their own body who were of good character, and would bring back a credible report after inspection.
They despatched them therefore; and Themistocles secretly sent directions about them to the Athenians, to detain them, with as little appearance of it as possible, and not to let them go until they themselves had returned back; (for by this time his colleagues, Abronychus, the son of Lysicles, and Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, had also come to him with the news that the wall was sufficiently advanced;) for he was afraid that the Lacedaemonians, when they heard the truth, might not then let them go.
So the Athenians detained the ambassadors, as was told them; and Themistocles, having come to an audience of the Lacedaemonians, then indeed told them plainly that their city was already walled, so as to be capable of defending its inhabitants; and if the Lacedaemonians or the allies wished to send any embassy to them, they should in future go as to men who could discern what were their own and the general interests.
For when they thought it better to abandon their city and to go on board their ships, they said that they had made up their minds, and had the courage to do it, without consulting them; and again, on whatever matters they had deliberated with them, they had shown themselves inferior to none in judgment.
And so at the present time, likewise, they thought it was better that their city should have a wall, and that it would be more expedient for their citizens in particular, as well as for the allies in general;
for it was not possible for any one without equal resources to give any equal or fair advice for the common good. Either all therefore, he said, should join the confederacy without walls, or they should consider that the present case also was as it ought to be.