Kitap 34
31
It was left to the tyrant to decide whether he would speak first or not, and he began the discussion in the following speech: "Titus Quinctius and all who are present: If I could have discovered for myself the reason why you have declared war against me or actually commenced it, I should have awaited in silence the issue of my fortunes. But as things are now I cannot control myself sufficiently to refrain from asking, before I perish, why I am to perish. If you were what the Carthaginians are reported to be, a people for whom the honourable observance of treaties possesses no sanctity, I should not be surprised at your considering it a matter of small moment in what way you treat me. But when I look at you I see that you are Romans who hold treaties to be the most solemn of all religious obligations, and fidelity to allies the most sacred of human duties. When I look at myself I hope I am still the man who in common with the rest of the Lacedaemonians is bound to you by an age-long treaty of alliance and who renewed in the recent war with Philip the personal tie of friendship. But, you say, I have violated and destroyed it by holding the city of the Argives. How shall I justify this? By appealing to facts or to the circumstances of the time? As to the facts I have a double defence, for it was the townsmen themselves who invoked my aid and put the place in my hands; I did not occupy it by force, I accepted it and that too when Philip's partisans were in power, not when it was your ally. The circumstance of time clears me too, because it was when I was actually holding Argos that the alliance between us was formed, and the stipulation was not that I should withdraw my garrison from Argos, but only that I should furnish assistance to you in the war. In this question of Argos I most certainly have the best of the argument both on the ground of equity and justice-for I took a city which belonged not to you but to your enemy, not by force but at the wish of the inhabitants-and also on the strength of your own admission, for under the terms of peace you left Argos to me.
