Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/102

 80 HISTORY OF GREECE. prese.it in the assembly so as to have heard the speeches both of the Corinthians and of the other complainants, obtained permis- sion from the magistrates to address the assembly in their turn. Thirdly, the address of the Spartan king Archidamus, on the course of policy proper to be adopted by Sparta. Lastly, the brief, but eminently characteristic, address of the ephor Sthene- laidas, on putting the question for decision. These sjeecb.es, the composition of Thucydides himself, contain substantially the sentiments of the parties to whom they are ascribed: neither of them is distinctly a reply to that which has preceded, but each presents the situation of affairs from a different point of view. The Corinthians knew well that the audience whom they were about to address had been favorably prepared for them, for the Lacedaemonian authorities had already given an actual prom- ise to them and to the Potidasans at the moment before Potidaea revolted, that they would invade Attica. So greal was the revo- lution in sentiment of the Spartans, since they had declined lending aid to the much more powerful island of Lesbos, when it proposed to revolt, a revolution occasioned by the altered interests and sentiments of Corinth. Nor were the Covinthians ignorant that their positive grounds of complaint against Athens, in respect of wrong or violation of the existing truce, were both few and feeble. Neither in the dispute about Potidasa nor about Korkyra, had Athens infringed the truce or wronged the Pelo- ponnesian alliance. In both, she had come into collision with Corinth, singly and apart from the confederacy : she had a right, both according to the truce and according to the received maxims of international law, to lend defensive aid to the Korkyrasans at their own request, she had a right also, according to the prin- ciples laid down by the Corinthians themselves on occasion of the revolt of Samos, to restrain the Potidaeans from revolting. She had committed nothing which could fairly be called an aggres- sion : indeed the aggression, both in the case of Potidasa and in that of Korkyra. was decidedly on the side of the Corinthians : n.nd the Peloponnesian confederacy could only be so far implicated as it was understood to be bound to espouse the separate quarrels, right or wrong, of Corinth. All this was well known to the Corinthian envoys ; and accordingly we find that, in their speech