The Best of the World's Classics (All 10 Volumes). Henry Cabot Lodge
at first, or afterward had not ventured to embark because our ruin was already complete, it would have been useless for you with your weak navy to fight at sea, but everything would have gone quietly just as the Persian desired.
"Considering, Lacedæmonians, the energy and sagacity which we then displayed, do we deserve to be so bitterly hated by the other Hellenes merely because we have an empire? That empire was not acquired by force; but you would not stay and make an end of the barbarian, and the allies came of their own accord and asked us to be their leaders. The subsequent development of our power was originally forced upon us by circumstances; fear was our first motive; afterward ambition, and then interest stept in. And when we had incurred the hatred of most of our allies, when some of them had already revolted and been subjugated, and you were no longer the friends to us which you once had been, but suspicious and ill-disposed, how could we without great risk relax our hold? For the cities as fast as they fell away from us would have gone over to you. And no man is to be reproached who seizes every possible advantage when the danger is so great.
"At all events, Lacedæmonians, we may retort that you, in the exercise of your supremacy, manage the cities of Peloponnesus to suit your own views, and that if you, and not we, had persevered in the command of the allies long enough to be hated, you would have been quite as intolerable to them as we are, and would have been compelled, for the sake of your own safety, to rule with a strong hand. An empire was offered to us: can you wonder that, acting as human nature always will, we accepted it, and refused to give it up again, constrained by three all powerful motives, ambition, fear, interest? We are not the first who have aspired to rule; the world has ever held that the weaker must be kept down by the stronger. And we think that we are worthy of power; and there was a time when you thought so too; but now when you mean expediency you talk about justice. Did justice ever deter any one from taking by force whatever he could? Men who indulge the natural ambition of empire deserve credit if they are in any degree more careful of justice than they need be. How moderate we are would speedily appear if others took our place; indeed, our very moderation, which should be our glory, has been unjustly converted into a reproach.
"For because in our suits with our allies, regulated by treaty, we do not even stand upon our rights, but have instituted the practise of deciding them at Athens and by Athenian law, we are supposed to be litigious. None of our opponents observes why others, who exercise dominion elsewhere and are less moderate than we are in their dealings with their subjects, escape this reproach. Why is it? Because men who practise violence have no longer any need of law. But we are in the habit of meeting our allies on terms of equality, and, therefore, if through some legal decision of ours, or exercise of our imperial power, contrary to their own ideas of right, they suffer ever so little, they are not grateful for our moderation in leaving them so much, but are far more offended at their trifling loss than if we had from the first plundered them in the face of day, laying aside all thought of law. For then they would themselves have admitted that the weaker must give way to the stronger. Mankind resents injustice more than violence, because the one seems to be an unfair advantage taken by an equal, the other is the irresistible force of a superior. They were patient under the yoke of the Persian, who inflicted on them far more grievous wrongs; but now our dominion is odious in their eyes. And no wonder: the ruler of the day is always detested by his subjects. And should your empire supplant ours, may not you lose the good-will which you owe to the fear of us? Lose it you certainly will, if you mean again to exhibit the temper of which you gave a specimen when, for a short time, you led the confederacy against the Persian. For the institutions under which you live are incompatible with those of foreign states; and further, when any of you goes abroad, he respects neither these nor any other Hellenic laws.
"Do not then be hasty in deciding a question which is serious; and do not, by listening to the misrepresentations and complaints of others, bring trouble upon yourselves. Realize, while there is time, the inscrutable nature of war; and how when protracted it generally ends in becoming a mere matter of chance, over which neither of us can have any control, the event being equally unknown and equally hazardous to both. The misfortune is that in their hurry to go to war, men begin with blows, and when a reverse comes upon them, then have recourse to words. But neither you nor we have as yet committed this mistake; and therefore while both of us can still choose the prudent part, we tell you not to break the peace or violate your oaths. Let our differences be determined by arbitration, according to the treaty. If you refuse, we call to witness the gods by whom you have sworn that you are the authors of the war; and we will do our best to strike in return."
When the Lacedæmonians had heard the charges brought by the allies against the Athenians, and their rejoinder, they ordered everybody but themselves to withdraw, and deliberated alone. The majority were agreed that there was now a clear case against the Athenians, and that they must fight at once.[25]
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Jowett says Thucydides "stands absolutely alone among historians, not only of Hellas, but of the world, in his impartiality and love of truth." Macaulay's enthusiasm for him is well known. Mahaffy says his work was intended to be a military history, compiled from original documents and from personal observations made by himself and other eye-witnesses. "There can not be the smallest doubt," adds Mahaffy, "that, in the hands of Thucydides, the art of writing history made an extraordinary stride and attained a perfection which no subsequent Hellenic, and few modern writers have attained." He is praised for the "lofty dignity" which he imparts to every subject. His temper is so solemn and severe as to be "strangely un-Attic." Among his great and enduring merits is the fact that he has "taught us to know more of Greek interpolitical life than all other Greek writers put together." No historian has been greater than he, not only in dignity of language, but in calmness of judgment, in intellectual force, and in breadth and acuteness of observation.
[19] From Book I of the "History of the Peloponnesian War." Translated by Benjamin Jowett.
[20] The Peloponnesians were the people of the peninsula which forms the southern part of Greece, and which is now known as Morea. In ancient times this territory was called the Peloponnesus. Its people comprized the inhabitants of several political domains called Achaia, Sicyonia, Corinthia, Argolis, Arcadia, Laconia, Messenia, and Elis. Laconia was otherwise, and quite anciently, known as Lacedæmon, its capital being the city of Sparta.
[21] Potidæa, the modern Pinaka, had revolted from Athens in 432 b.c., but did not capitulate until the end of the second year of the Peloponnesian war. It was a rich and flourishing town, originally Dorian, but colonized later from Corinth. During one of the Eastern invasions of Greece, it fell into Persian hands.
[22] These walls connected Athens with its port, the Piræus, and were each about five miles long. They ran parallel and were separated from each other by about 500 feet of space. This intervening land was used for a carriage road, on either side of which were houses. Thus was formed a continuous walled street from Athens to the sea, so that communication in case of war was made secure.
[23] The battle of Marathon was fought in September, 490. It ended the attempts of Darius to subdue Greece.
[24] The battle of Salamis took place in September, 480, and was fought in waters lying between the Piræus and the island of Salamis. Themistocles commanded the Greeks. The Persian ships were practically annihilated. Byron's lines on this battle, in his poem "The Isles of Greece," will be recalled.
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