Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 1.djvu/176

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS people would attend but their private interest, without the least regard to the common cause of Greece. Should he choose you for allies, you would serve him so far only as justice would permit; but if he attached himself to them, he gained assistants in all the schemes of his ambition. This it is that then determined him, this it is that now determines him to their side rather than to yours: not that he sees they have a greater naval force than we; or that, having gained the sovereignty in the inland countries, he declines the command of the seas and the advantages of commerce; or that he has forgotten those pretenses, those promises which obtained him the peace.

But I may be told: It is true, he did act thus; but not from ambition, or from any of those motives of which I accuse him; but as he thought the cause of Thebes more just than ours. This of all pretenses he cannot now allege. Can he, who commands the Lacedæmonians to quit their claim to Messene, pretend that, in giving up Orchomenus and Coronea to the Thebans, he acted from regard to justice? But now comes his last subterfuge. He was compelled, and yielded these places quite against his inclinations, being encompassed by the Thessalian horse and Theban infantry. Fine pretense! Just so, they cry, he is to entertain suspicions of the Thebans; and some spread rumors of their own framing, that he is to fortify Elatea. Yes! these things are yet to be, and so will they remain, in my