Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/107

 NICIAS as they have studied a reputation for bravery, as a thing of the greatest importance, and for the greatest length of time. So that our great struggle will be, if we are wise, not for the Segestans in Sicily, men who are barbarians, but that we may vigorously guard against a state which is plotting against us by the spread of oligarchical principles.

I am alarmed, indeed, when I see such characters sitting here at present by the side of that same individual, in compliance with his bidding; and in return I bid the older men—whichever of them may have one of those characters sitting by him—not to be put down through shame, in order to avoid being thought a coward if he should not vote for going to war; nor, as their opponents themselves might feel, to be madly enamored of what they do not possess; being convinced that in very few things do men succeed through desire, but in very many through fore thought; but in behalf of their country, as exposing itself to the greatest danger it has ever done, to give their support to the opposite side, and vote that the Siceliots keep the same boundaries with respect to us as at present—boundaries with which no one can find fault—namely, the Ionian Sea, if one sail along shore; and the Sicilian, if one cross the open deep; and that while they enjoy their own possessions, they shall also settle their own (quarrels: and that we tell the Segestans in particular, that since they went to war with the Selinuntines in the first instance 53