Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/102

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS against your inclinations my words would be powerless, should I advise you to keep what you have, and not expose your present possessions to danger for things which are uncertain and future; yet that neither are you timely in your haste, nor the objects of your ambition easy to attain, on these points I will give you instruction.

I say then, that you wish, tho leaving many enemies behind you here, to bring hither fresh ones besides, by sailing there. And you fancy, perhaps, that the treaty that has been made by you affords some ground of confidence. But tho as long as you remain quiet, that will, indeed, be a treaty—in name (for this condition have certain persons here and among your enemies brought it by their intrigues), yet if we are ever defeated with any considerable force, those who hate us will quickly make an attack upon us; seeing, in the first place, that the arrangement was made of necessity by them, under circumstances of disaster, and of greater discredit to them than to us; and, secondly, that in this very arrangement we have many subjects open to debate. There are some, too, who have not yet acceded even to this composition, such as it is, and those not the least powerful states; but some of them are at war with us downright, and, in the case of others, because the Lacedæmonians remain quiet at present, they too are restrained by truces from one ten days to another. But probably, if they should find our 50