Kitap 45
23
"States, like individuals, have their distinctive characters, some are hot-tempered, others bold and enterprising; some are of a timid disposition, others more prone to sensual indulgence. The people of Athens are generally reported to be quick and impulsive and venture upon enterprises beyond their strength: the Lacedaemonians are said to be slow in action and only with difficulty are they brought to engage in undertakings in which they feel perfectly safe. I quite admit that Asia as a whole produces somewhat empty heads and that the language of my countrymen is somewhat inflated because we fancy ourselves superior to our neighbours. This in itself is due more to the honours which you have judged us worthy to receive than to any strength which we ourselves possessed. Surely that embassy was sufficiently chastised when it was dismissed without any reply. If the humiliation then inflicted was not enough, this embassy, at all events, with its piteous and suppliant appeal will be an adequate atonement for an even more peremptory set of negotiators than that one was. Arrogance, especially in language, is bitterly resented by hot-tempered people and laughed at by sensible people, particularly when shown by inferiors towards a superior, but no one has ever regarded it as a capital offence. Possibly some one imagined that the Rhodians felt a contempt for the Romans. Some men even abuse the gods in presumptuous language, but we do not hear of any one being struck by lightning for it.
