History of the Peloponnesian War

And we were left independent for no other reason than because they clearly saw that with a view to empire they must get control of affairs by fair-seeming words and by attacks of policy rather than of force.

For, on the one hand, they had as evidence in their favour that surely those who have an equal voice with themselves would never have taken part in their campaigns had not those whom they attacked been guilty of some wrong; and on the other hand, they also brought the united strength of the strongest states against the less powerful first, and leaving the former to the last they counted upon finding them weaker when all the rest had been removed from around them.