History of the Peloponnesian War

This answer is just and at the same time consistent with the dignity of the city. But we must realise that war is inevitable, and that the more willing we show ourselves to accept it, the less eager will our enemies be to attack us, and also that it is from the greatest dangers that the greatest honours accrue to a state as well as to an individual.

Our fathers, at any rate, withstood the Persians, although they had no such resources as ours, and abandoned even those which they possessed, and by their resolution more than by good fortune and with a courage greater than their strength beat back the Barbarian and advanced our fortunes to their present state. And we must not fall short of their example, but must defend ourselves against our enemies in every way, and must endeavour to hand down our empire undiminished to posterity."

Sucl were the words of Pericles: and the Athenians, thinking that he was advising them for the best, voted as he directed, and answered the Lacedaemonians according to his bidding, both as regards the particulars as he set them forth and on the whole question, to the effect that they would do nothing upon dictation, but were ready in accordance with the treaty to have all complaints adjusted by arbitration on a fair and equal basis. So the Lacedaemonian envoys went back home and thereafter came on no further missions.

These were the grounds of complaint and the causes of disagreement on both sides before the war, and they began to appear immediately after the affair of Epidamnus and Corcyra. Nevertheless the two parties continued to have intercourse with one another during these recriminations and visited each other without heralds,[*](i.e. without the formalities which are indispensable after war is declared.) though not without suspicion; for the events which were taking place constituted an actual annulment of the treaty and furnished an occasion for war.