History of the Peloponnesian War

" You may reasonably be expected, moreover, to support the dignity which the state has attained through empire—a dignity in which you all take pride—and not to avoid its burdens, unless you resign its honours also. Nor must you think that you are fighting for the simple issue of slavery or freedom; on the contrary, loss of empire is also involved and danger from the hatred incurred in your sway.

From this empire, however, it is too late for you even to withdraw, if any one at the present crisis, through fear and shrinking from action does indeed seek thus to play the honest man; for by this time the empire you hold is a tyranny, which it may seem wrong to have assumed, but which certainly it is dangerous to let go.

Men like these would soon ruin a state, either here, if they should win others to their views, or if they should settle in some other land and have an independent state all to themselves; for men of peace are not safe unless flanked by men of action; nor is it expedient in an imperial state, but only in a vassal state, to seek safety by submission.

"Do not be led astray by such citizens as these, nor persist in your anger with me,—for you yourselves voted for the war the same as I—just because the enemy has come and done exactly what he was certain to do the moment you refused to hearken to his demands, even though, beyond all our expectations, this plague has fallen upon us—the only thing which has happened that has transcended our foresight. I am well aware that your displeasure with me has been aggravated by the plague; but there is no justice in that, unless you mean to give me also the credit whenever any unexpected good fortune falls to your lot.

But the right course is to bear with resignation the afflictions sent by heaven and with fortitude the hardships that come from the enemy; for such has been the practice of this city in the past, and let it find no impediment in yourselves.