Kitap 2
And it is I you are angry withal, one, as I think myself, inferior to none either in knowing what is requisite or in expressing what I know, and a lover of my country and superior to money.
For he that hath good thoughts and cannot clearly express them were as good to have thought nothing at all. He that can do both and is ill affected to his country will likewise not give it faithful counsel. And he that will do that too yet if he be superable by money will for that alone set all the rest to sale.
Now if you followed my advice in making this war, as esteeming these virtues to be in me somewhat above the rest, there is sure no reason that I should now be accused of doing you wrong.
"For though to such as have it in their own election (being otherwise in good estate), it were madness to make choice of war; yet when we must of necessity either give way, and so without more ado be subject to our neighbours, or else save ourselves from it by danger, he is more to be condemned that declineth the danger than he that standeth to it.
For mine own part I am the man I was and of the mind I was; but you are changed, won to the war when you were entire but repenting it upon the damage and condemning my counsel in the weakness of your own judgment. The reason of this is because you feel already everyone in particular that which afflicts you, but the evidence of the profit to accrue to the city in general you see not yet.
And your minds, dejected with the great and sudden alteration, cannot constantly maintain what you have before resolved. For that which is sudden and unexpected and contrary to what one hath deliberated enslaveth the spirit, which by this disease principally, in the neck of the other incommodities, is now come to pass in you.
But you that are born in a great city and with education suitable, how great soever the affliction be, ought not to shrink at it and eclipse your reputation (for men do no less condemn those that through cowardice lose the glory they have than hate those that through impudence arrogate the glory they have not) but to set aside the grief of your private losses and lay your hands to the common safety.
"As for the toil of the war, that it may perhaps be long and we in the end never the nearer to victory, though that may suffice which I have demonstrated at other times touching your causeless suspicion that way, yet this I will tell you, moreover, touching the greatness of your means for dominion, which neither you yourselves seem ever to have thought on nor I touched in my former orations, nor would I also have spoken it now but that I see your minds dejected more than there is cause for.
That though you take your dominion to extend only to your confederates, I affirm that of the two parts of the world of manifest use, the land and the sea, you are of one of them entire masters, both of as much of it as you make use of and also of as much more as you shall think fit yourselves. Neither is there any king or nation whatsoever of those that now are that can impeach your navigation with the fleet and strength you now go.
So that you must not put the use of houses and lands wherein now you think yourselves deprived of a mighty matter into the balance with such a power as this nor take the loss of these things heavily in respect of it, but rather set little by them as but a light ornament and embellishment of wealth, and think that our liberty as long as we hold fast that will easily recover unto us these things again; whereas subjected once to others, even that which we possess besides will be diminished. Show not yourselves both ways inferior to your ancestors, who not only held this (gotten by their own labours not left them) but have also preserved and delivered the same unto us (for it is more dishonour to lose what one possesseth than to miscarry in the acquisition of it), and encounter the enemy not only with magnanimity but also with disdain.
For a coward may have a high mind upon a prosperous ignorance; but he that is confident upon judgment to be superior to his enemy doth also disdain him, which is now our case.
And courage in equal fortune is the safer for our disdain of the enemy where a man knows what he doth; for he trusteth less to hope, which is of force only in uncertainties, and more to judgment upon certainties, wherein there is a more sure foresight.
"You have reason besides to maintain the dignity the city hath gotten for her dominion in which you all triumph, and either not decline the pains or not also pursue the honour. And you must not think the question is now of your liberty and servitude only. Besides the loss of your rule over others, you must stand the danger you have contracted by offence given in the administration of it.
Nor can you now give it over (if any fearing at this present that that may come to pass, encourage himself with the intention of not to meddle hereafter), for already your government is in the nature of a tyranny, which is both unjust for you to take up and unsafe to lay down.
And such men as these, if they could persuade others to it or lived in a free city by themselves, would quickly overthrow it. For the quiet life can never be preserved if it be not ranged with the active life, nor is it a life conducible to a city that reigneth but to a subject city that it may safely serve.
Be not therefore seduced by this sort of men nor angry with me, together with whom yourselves did decree this war, because the enemy invading you hath done what was likely he would if you obeyed him not. And as for the sickness, the only thing that exceeded the imagination of all men, it was unlooked for; and I know you hate me somewhat the more for that, but unjustly, unless when anything falleth out above your expectation fortunate, you will also dedicate unto me that.
Evils that come from heaven you must bear necessarily, and such as proceed from your enemies, valiantly; for so it hath been the custom of this city to do heretofore, which custom let it not be your part to reverse.
Knowing that this city hath a great name amongst all people for not yielding to adversity and for the mighty power it yet hath after the expense of so many lives and so much labour in the war, the memory whereof, though we should now at length miscarry (for all things are made with this law, to decay again), will remain with posterity forever. How that being Grecians, most of the Grecians were our subjects; that we have abided the greatest wars against them, both universally and singly, and have inhabited the greatest and wealthiest city.
Now this he with the quiet life will condemn, the active man will emulate, and they that have not attained to the like will envy.
But to be hated and to displease is a thing that happeneth for the time to whosoever he be that hath the command of others; and he does well, that undergoeth hatred for matters of great consequence. For the hatred lasteth not and is recompensed both with a present splendour and an immortal glory hereafter.
Seeing then you foresee both what is honourable for the future and not dishonourable for the present procure both the one and the other by your courage now. Send no more heralds to the Lacedaemonians, nor let them know the evil present does anyway afflict you; for they whose minds least feel and whose actions most oppose a calamity both among states and private persons are the best.
In this speech did Pericles endeavour to appease the anger of the Athenians towards himself and withal to withdraw their thoughts from the present affliction.
But they, though for the state in general they were won and sent to the Lacedaemonians no more but rather inclined to the war, yet they were everyone in particular grieved for their several losses: the poor because entering the war with little, they lost that little; and the rich because they had lost fair possessions, together with goodly houses and costly furniture in them, in the country; but the greatest matter of all was that they had war instead of peace.
And altogether, they deposed not their anger till they had first fined him in a sum of money.
Nevertheless, not long after (as is the fashion of the multitude) they made him general again and committed the whole state to his administration. For the sense of their domestic losses was now dulled, and for the need of the commonwealth they prized him more than any other whatsoever.
For as long as he was in authority in the city in time of peace, he governed the same with moderation and was a faithful watchman of it; and in his time it was at the greatest.
And after the war was on foot, it is manifest that he therein also foresaw what it could do. He lived after the war began two years and six months.
And his foresight in the war was best known after his death. For he told them that if they would be quiet and look to their navy, and during this war seek no further dominion nor hazard the city itself, they should then have the upper hand. But they did contrary in all, and in such other things besides as seemed not to concern the war managed the state, according to their private ambition and covetousness, perniciously both for themselves and their confederates. What succeeded well the honour and profit of it came most to private men, and what miscarried was to the city's detriment in the war.
The reason whereof was this: that being a man of great power both for his dignity and wisdom, and for bribes manifestly the most incorrupt, he freely controlled the multitude and was not so much led by them as he led them. Because, having gotten his power by no evil arts, he would not humour them in his speeches but out of his authority durst anger them with contradiction.
Therefore, whensoever he saw them out of season insolently bold, he would with his orations put them into a fear; and again, when they were afraid without reason, he would likewise erect their spirits and embolden them.
It was in name a state democratical, but in fact a government of the principal man. But they that came after, being more equal amongst themselves and affecting everyone to be the chief, applied themselves to the people and let go the care of the commonwealth.
From whence amongst many other errors, as was likely in a great and dominant city, proceeded also the voyage into Sicily, which was not so much upon mistaking those whom they went against as for want of knowledge in the senders of what was necessary for those that went the voyage. For through private quarrels about who should bear the greatest sway with the people they both abated the vigour of the army and then also first troubled the state at home with division.
Being overthrown in Sicily and having lost, besides other ammunition, the greatest part of their navy, and the city being then in sedition, yet they held out three years both against their first enemies and the Sicilians with them and against most of their revolted confederates besides, and also afterwards against Cyrus the king's son, who took part with and sent money to the Peloponnesians to maintain their fleet and never shrunk till they had overthrown themselves with private dissensions.
So much was in Pericles above other men at that time that he could foresee by what means the city might easily have outlasted the Peloponnesians in this war.
The Lacedaemonians and their confederates made war the same summer with one hundred galleys against Zacynthus, an island lying over against Elis. The inhabitants whereof were a colony of Achaeans of Peloponnesus but confederates of the people of Athens.
There went in this fleet a thousand men of arms and Cnemus a Spartan for admiral, who, landing, wasted the greatest part of the territory. But they of the island not yielding, they put off again and went home.
In the end of the same summer, Aristeus of Corinth and Aneristus, Nicolaus, Stratodemus, and Timagorus of Tegea, ambassadors of the Lacedaemonians, and Pollis of Argos, a private man, as they were travelling into Asia to the king to get money of him and to draw him into their league, took Thrace in their way and came unto Sitalces the son of Teres with a desire to get him also, if they could, to forsake the league with Athens and to send his forces to Potidaea, which the Athenian army now besieged, and not to aid the Athenians any longer, and withal to get leave to pass through his country to the other side of the Hellespont to go, as they intended, to Pharnabazus the son of Pharnaces, who would convoy them to the king.
But the ambassadors of Athens, Learchus the son of Callimachus and Ameiniades the son of Philemon, then resident with Sitalces, persuaded Sadocus the son of Sitalces, who was now a citizen of Athens, to put them into their hands that they might not go to the king and do hurt to the city whereof he himself was now a member.
Whereunto condescending, as they journeyed through Thrace to take ship to cross the Hellespont, he apprehended them before they got to the ship by such others as he sent along with Learchus and Ameiniades with command to deliver them into their hands.
And they, when they had them, sent them away to Athens. When they came thither, the Athenians, fearing Aristeus, lest escaping he should do them further mischief (for he was manifestly the author of all the business of Potidaea and about Thrace), the same day put them all to death, unjudged and desirous to have spoken, and threw them into the pits, thinking it but just to take revenge of the Lacedaemonians that began it and had slain and thrown into pits the merchants of the Athenians and their confederates whom they took sailing in merchant ships about the coast of Peloponnesus. For in the beginning of the war, the Lacedaemonians slew as enemies whomsoever they took at sea, whether confederates of the Athenians or neutral, all alike.