Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/197

 121, 122] SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS 8l to give freely in order to save ourselves and be avenged on our enemies, or rather to prevent the money which we refused to give from being taken from us by them and used to our destruction ? 'These are some of the means by which the war may 122 be carried on; but there are others. We r> . hy gatntug over their may induce their allies to revolt, — a allies, we may cut off sure mode of cutting off the revenues '^'" ^^ourees. in which the strength of Athens consists ; or we may plant a fort in their country; and there are many expedients which will hereafter suggest themselves. For war, least of all things, conforms to prescribed rules; it strikes out a path for itself when the moment comes. And therefore he who has his temper under control in warfare is safer far, but he who gets into a passion is, through his own fault, liable to the greater fall. 'If this were merely a quarrel between one of us and our neighbours about a boundary line jjr^^ ^,,.,,/y ^,,^„„.^ it would not matter; but reflect: the we shall deserve to be truth is that the Athenians are a match ^^"^'^^' for us all, and much more than a match for any single city. And if we allow ourselves to be divided or are not united against them heart and soul— the whole confederacy and every nation and city in it — they will easily overpower us. It may seem a hard saying, but you may be sure that defeat means nothing but downright slavery, and the bare mention of such a possibility is a disgrace to the Pelo- ponnese : — shall so many states suffer at the hands of one? Men will say, some that we deserve our fate, others that we are too cowardly to resist : and we shall seem a degenerate race. For our fathers were the liberators of Hellas, but we cannot secure even our own liberty; and while we make a point of overthrowing the rule of a single man in this or that city, we allow a city which IS a tyrant to be set up in the midst of us. Are we not open to one of three most serious charges— folly, VOL. I. G