History of the Peloponnesian War

For I am not come to join a faction, nor do I think that the freedom I am offering would be a real one if, regardless of your ancestral institutions, I should enslave the majority to the few or the minority to the multitude.

That would be more galling than foreign rule, and for us Lacedaemonians the result would be, not thanks for our pains, but, instead of honour and glory, only reproach; and the very charges on which we are waging war to the death against the Athenians we should be found to be bringing home to ourselves in a more odious form than the power which has made no display of virtue.

For it is more shameful, at least to men of reputation, to gain advantage by specious deceit than by open force; for the one makes assault by the assertion of power, which is the gift of fortune, the other by the intrigues of deliberate injustice.

Consequently we Lacedaemonians use great circumspection as regards matters that concern us in the highest degree[*](Referring to Sparta's reputation for justice.);

and you could not get better security, in addition to our oaths, than where you have men whose actions scrutinized in the light of their professions furnish the irresistible conviction that their interests are indeed exactly as they have said. “But if you meet these offers of mine with the plea that you cannot join us, but, because you are welldisposed to us, claim that you should not suffer by your refusal, and maintain that the liberty I offer seems to you to be not without its dangers, and that it is right to offer it to those who can receive it but not to force it on anyone against his will, I shall make the gods and heroes of your country my witnesses that, though I come for your good, I cannot persuade you, and I shall try, by ravaging your territory, to compel you;

and in that case I shall not consider that I am doing wrong, but that I have some justification, for two compelling reasons: first, in the interest of the Lacedaemonians, that with all your professed goodwill toward them they may not, in case you shall not be brought over, be injured by the money you pay as tribute to the Athenians; secondly, that the Hellenes may not be prevented by you from escaping bondage.

For otherwise we should not be justified in acting thus, nor are we Lacedaemonians bound, except on the plea of some common good, to confer liberty on those who do not wish it.

Nor, again, are we seeking after empire, but rather we are eager to stop others from acquiring it; and we should do wrong to the majority, if, when we are bringing independence to all, we permitted you to stand in the way.