Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/214

 98 SPEECH OF PERICLES [l B.C. 432. a confederacy are slow to meet, and when they do meet, they give little time to the consideration of any common interest, and a great deal to schemes which further the interest of their particular state. Every one fancies that his own neglect will do no harm, but that it is somebody else's business to keep a look-out for him, and this idea, cherished alike by each, is the secret ruin of all. 142 ' Their greatest difficulty will be want of money, which They cannot do you they can only provide slowly ; delay any real harm by build- will thus occur, and War Waits for no ing a rival city or ^^^^^ Further, no fortified place which fortified posts tn Attica ;. . ... nor can they, mere they Can raise agamst us a is to be landsmen as they are, feared any more than their navy. As rival you at sea. jq ^^e first, even in time of peace it would be hard for them to build a city able to compete with Athens ; and how much more so when they are in an enemy's country, and our walls will be a menace to them quite as much as theirs to us ! Or, again, if they simply raise a fort in our territory, they may do mischief to some part of our lands by sallies, and the slaves may desert to them ; but that will not prevent us from sailing to the Peloponnese and there raising forts against them, and defending ourselves there by the help of our navy, which is our strong arm. For we have gained more experience of fighting on land from warfare at sea than they of naval affairs from warfare on land. And they will not easily acquire the art of seamanship'^; even you yourselves, who have been practising ever since the Persian War, are not yet perfect. How can they, who are not sailors, but tillers of the soil, do much ? They will not even be permitted to practise, because a large fleet will constantly be lying in wait for them. If they were watched by a few ships only, they might run the risk, trusting to their numbers and forgetting their inexperience; but if they are kept off the sea by our superior strength, their Cp. i. 122 init. '' Cp. i. 121 med.