History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides, Vol. 1-4. Smith, Charles Foster, translator. London and Cambridge, MA: Heinemann and Harvard University Press, 1919-1923.

For it is not through hatred of one of the two races into which we are divided that they will attack us, but because they covet the good things of Sicily which we possess in common. They have just made this clear by their response to the appeal which the people of Chalcidic stock made to them;[*](cf. 3.86.3.)

for to those who have never given them aid according to the terms of their alliance they of their own accord have fulfilled an ally's obligations with a zeal exceeding their compact. That the Athenians entertain these designs of aggrandisement is quite pardonable;