Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/261

 61,62] SPEECH OF PERICLES 145 your superiority which appears to have escaped you% although it nearly touches your imperial greatness. I too have never mentioned Do you fear that your f suffcnngs will be fruit- itbelore, nor would 1 now, because the less? I tell you that claim may seem too arrogant, if I did you are absolute masters not see that you are unreasonably de- of the sea iMch is half •^ . -' the world. What are pressed. You think that your empire your possessions in com- is confined to your allies, but I say that pn'^^on iviih freedom ? of the two divisions of the world acces- ^"^ "'"'' ".'"^^T ""? 500;/ regain the rest. sible to man, the land and the sea, there Meet your eviemies with is oneof which you are absolute masters, disdain, as having a di 1 ii J • •, rational conviction of have, or may have, the dommion to ^ ■■. ' _ -^ ' your superwnty. any extent which you please. Neither the great King nor any nation on earth can hinder a navy like yours from penetrating whithersoever you choose to sail. When we reflect on this great power, houses and lands, of which the loss seems so dreadful to you, are as nothing. We ought not to be troubled about them or to think much of them in comparison ; they are only the garden of the house, the superfluous ornament of wealth ; and you may be sure that if we cling to our freedom and preserve that, we shall soon enough recover all the rest. But, if we are the servants of others, we shall be sure to lose not only freedom, but all that freedom gives. And where your ancestors doubly succeeded, you will doubly fail. For their empire was not inherited by them from others but won by the labour of their hands, and by them preserved and bequeathed to us. And to be robbed of what you have is a greater disgrace than to attempt a conquest and fail. Meet your enemies therefore not only with spirit but with disdain. A coward or a fortunate fool may brag and vaunt, but he only is capable of disdain whose conviction that he is TTipi with (uOviirjefivai : ' one element of your superiority which nearly touches your empire, but of which you never seem to have considered the importance.' VOL. I. L