Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/109

 HERMOCRATES

ON THE UNION OF SICILY AGAINST INVADERS

(416 B.C.)

is not because I am of a city that is either the least powerful, or the most distressed by hostilities that I shall address you, Sicilians, but in order publicly to state what appears to me the best policy for the whole of Sicily. And now with regard to war, to prove that it is a disastrous thing, why need one particularize all the evil involved in it, and so make a long speech before those who are acquainted with it? For no one is either driven to engage in it through ignorance, or deterred from it by fear, should he think that he will gain any advantage; but it is the lot of the former to imagine the gains greater than the dangers; and the latter will face the perils rather than put up with any present loss. But if both should happen to be thus acting unseasonably, exhortations to peace would be useful. And this would be most serviceable to us 55