History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides (classic literature books .TXT) 📗
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violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the
second like being compelled by a superior. At all events they
contrived to put up with much worse treatment than this from the Mede,
yet they think our rule severe, and this is to be expected, for the
present always weighs heavy on the conquered. This at least is
certain. If you were to succeed in overthrowing us and in taking our
place, you would speedily lose the popularity with which fear of us
has invested you, if your policy of to-day is at all to tally with the
sample that you gave of it during the brief period of your command
against the Mede. Not only is your life at home regulated by rules and
institutions incompatible with those of others, but your citizens
abroad act neither on these rules nor on those which are recognized by
the rest of Hellas.
“Take time then in forming your resolution, as the matter is of
great importance; and do not be persuaded by the opinions and
complaints of others to bring trouble on yourselves, but consider
the vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it.
As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances
from which neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in
the dark. It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong
end, to act first, and wait for disaster to discuss the matter. But we
are not yet by any means so misguided, nor, so far as we can see,
are you; accordingly, while it is still open to us both to choose
aright, we bid you not to dissolve the treaty, or to break your oaths,
but to have our differences settled by arbitration according to our
agreement. Or else we take the gods who heard the oaths to witness,
and if you begin hostilities, whatever line of action you choose, we
will try not to be behindhand in repelling you.”
Such were the words of the Athenians. After the Lacedaemonians had
heard the complaints of the allies against the Athenians, and the
observations of the latter, they made all withdraw, and consulted by
themselves on the question before them. The opinions of the majority
all led to the same conclusion; the Athenians were open aggressors,
and war must be declared at once. But Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian
king, came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a wise and
a moderate man, and made the following speech:
“I have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the
experience of many wars, and I see those among you of the same age
as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune of longing for
war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its
safety. This, the war on which you are now debating, would be one of
the greatest magnitude, on a sober consideration of the matter. In a
struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours our strength is of the
same character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the different
points. But a struggle with a people who live in a distant land, who
have also an extraordinary familiarity with the sea, and who are in
the highest state of preparation in every other department; with
wealth private and public, with ships, and horses, and heavy infantry,
and a population such as no one other Hellenic place can equal, and
lastly a number of tributary allies—what can justify us in rashly
beginning such a struggle? wherein is our trust that we should rush on
it unprepared? Is it in our ships? There we are inferior; while if
we are to practise and become a match for them, time must intervene.
Is it in our money? There we have a far greater deficiency. We neither
have it in our treasury, nor are we ready to contribute it from our
private funds. Confidence might possibly be felt in our superiority in
heavy infantry and population, which will enable us to invade and
devastate their lands. But the Athenians have plenty of other land
in their empire, and can import what they want by sea. Again, if we
are to attempt an insurrection of their allies, these will have to
be supported with a fleet, most of them being islanders. What then
is to be our war? For unless we can either beat them at sea, or
deprive them of the revenues which feed their navy, we shall meet with
little but disaster. Meanwhile our honour will be pledged to keeping
on, particularly if it be the opinion that we began the quarrel. For
let us never be elated by the fatal hope of the war being quickly
ended by the devastation of their lands. I fear rather that we may
leave it as a legacy to our children; so improbable is it that the
Athenian spirit will be the slave of their land, or Athenian
experience be cowed by war.
“Not that I would bid you be so unfeeling as to suffer them to
injure your allies, and to refrain from unmasking their intrigues; but
I do bid you not to take up arms at once, but to send and
remonstrate with them in a tone not too suggestive of war, nor again
too suggestive of submission, and to employ the interval in perfecting
our own preparations. The means will be, first, the acquisition of
allies, Hellenic or barbarian it matters not, so long as they are an
accession to our strength naval or pecuniary—I say Hellenic or
barbarian, because the odium of such an accession to all who like us
are the objects of the designs of the Athenians is taken away by the
law of self-preservation—and secondly the development of our home
resources. If they listen to our embassy, so much the better; but if
not, after the lapse of two or three years our position will have
become materially strengthened, and we can then attack them if we
think proper. Perhaps by that time the sight of our preparations,
backed by language equally significant, will have disposed them to
submission, while their land is still untouched, and while their
counsels may be directed to the retention of advantages as yet
undestroyed. For the only light in which you can view their land is
that of a hostage in your hands, a hostage the more valuable the
better it is cultivated. This you ought to spare as long as
possible, and not make them desperate, and so increase the
difficulty of dealing with them. For if while still unprepared,
hurried away by the complaints of our allies, we are induced to lay it
waste, have a care that we do not bring deep disgrace and deep
perplexity upon Peloponnese. Complaints, whether of communities or
individuals, it is possible to adjust; but war undertaken by a
coalition for sectional interests, whose progress there is no means of
foreseeing, does not easily admit of creditable settlement.
“And none need think it cowardice for a number of confederates to
pause before they attack a single city. The Athenians have allies as
numerous as our own, and allies that pay tribute, and war is a
matter not so much of arms as of money, which makes arms of use. And
this is more than ever true in a struggle between a continental and
a maritime power. First, then, let us provide money, and not allow
ourselves to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we
have done so: as we shall have the largest share of responsibility for
the consequences be they good or bad, we have also a right to a
tranquil inquiry respecting them.
“And the slowness and procrastination, the parts of our character
that are most assailed by their criticism, need not make you blush. If
we undertake the war without preparation, we should by hastening its
commencement only delay its conclusion: further, a free and a famous
city has through all time been ours. The quality which they condemn is
really nothing but a wise moderation; thanks to its possession, we
alone do not become insolent in success and give way less than
others in misfortune; we are not carried away by the pleasure of
hearing ourselves cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns;
nor, if annoyed, are we any the more convinced by attempts to
exasperate us by accusation. We are both warlike and wise, and it is
our sense of order that makes us so. We are warlike, because
self-control contains honour as a chief constituent, and honour
bravery. And we are wise, because we are educated with too little
learning to despise the laws, and with too severe a self-control to
disobey them, and are brought up not to be too knowing in useless
matters—such as the knowledge which can give a specious criticism of
an enemy’s plans in theory, but fails to assail them with equal
success in practice—but are taught to consider that the schemes of
our enemies are not dissimilar to our own, and that the freaks of
chance are not determinable by calculation. In practice we always base
our preparations against an enemy on the assumption that his plans are
good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a belief in his
blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought we to
believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to
think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest
school. These practices, then, which our ancestors have delivered to
us, and by whose maintenance we have always profited, must not be
given up. And we must not be hurried into deciding in a day’s brief
space a question which concerns many lives and fortunes and many
cities, and in which honour is deeply involved—but we must decide
calmly. This our strength peculiarly enables us to do. As for the
Athenians, send to them on the matter of Potidaea, send on the
matter of the alleged wrongs of the allies, particularly as they are
prepared with legal satisfaction; and to proceed against one who
offers arbitration as against a wrongdoer, law forbids. Meanwhile do
not omit preparation for war. This decision will be the best for
yourselves, the most terrible to your opponents.”
Such were the words of Archidamus. Last came forward Sthenelaidas,
one of the ephors for that year, and spoke to the Lacedaemonians as
follows:
“The long speech of the Athenians I do not pretend to understand.
They said a good deal in praise of themselves, but nowhere denied that
they are injuring our allies and Peloponnese. And yet if they
behaved well against the Mede then, but ill towards us now, they
deserve double punishment for having ceased to be good and for
having become bad. We meanwhile are the same then and now, and shall
not, if we are wise, disregard the wrongs of our allies, or put off
till to-morrow the duty of assisting those who must suffer to-day.
Others have much money and ships and horses, but we have good allies
whom we must not give up to the Athenians, nor by lawsuits and words
decide the matter, as it is anything but in word that we are harmed,
but render instant and powerful help. And let us not be told that it
is fitting for us to deliberate under injustice; long deliberation
is rather fitting for those who have injustice in contemplation.
Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour of Sparta
demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor
betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against
the aggressors.”
With these words he, as ephor,
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