Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 2.djvu/251

 84-86] SPEECH OF EUPHEMUS 243 Leontines and our friends in Sicily should be as inde- pendent as possible. 'Now to a tyrant or to an imperial city'^ nothing is 85 inconsistent which is expedient, and jy^ ^^^ ,^^^„ ^,..^_ no man is a kinsman who cannot be npic, and that principle trusted. In each case we must make requires a different r • 1 • J •. • policy in different cases. friends or enemies according to cir- ' cumstances, and here our interest requires, not that we should weaken our friends, but that our friends should be too strong for our enemies. Do not mistrust us. In Hellas we act upon the same principle, managing our allies as our interest requires in their several cases. The Chians and Methymnaeans furnish us with ships, and are their own masters ; the majority are less independent, and pay a tribute ; others, although they are islanders and might be easily conquered, enjoy complete freedom, because they are situated conveniently for operations about Peloponnesus ''. So that in Sicily too our policy is likely to be determined by our interest, and, as I was saying, by our fear of the Syracusans. For they desire to be your masters, but first they must unite you in a common suspicion of us, and then either by force, or through your isolation, when we have failed and retired, they will dominate Sicily. This is inevitable if you now ioin them. Your united power will be ,. •' ^ Yoii told us that more than we can manage, and the Symcuse would rule Syracusans, when we are gone, will be Sicily, and ive give you too much for you. He who thinks b^'-'^' yonr words. You^^ •' . have nothing to fear Otherwise is convicted out of his own f,om us, who are at a mouth. For when you originally in- distance, but muh to vitcd us, the danger which we should ^'"^ ^""' *'" ^y"' ° ctisans, who are vour incur if we allowed you to fall into the „eiMwurs and can al- hands of the Syracusans was precisely ways get at you. Yon what you held before our eyes, and 'fl be sony some day •^ •' that you have lost us. now you ought not to distrust the argu- " Cp. ii. 63; iii. 37 init. '' Cp. ii. 7 fin.; vii. 57 mcd.