History of the Peloponnesian War

And just this has been your experience, men of Athens, with regard to the Lacedaemonians and their allies: because you have got the better of them beyond your expectation—in comparison with what you feared at first—you despise them now and aim even at the conquest of Sicily.

You have no right, however, to be elated at the misfortunes of your opponents, but only when you have mastered their spirits should you feel confidence; nor must you believe that the Lacedaemonians, on account of their humiliation, have anything else in view than to discover in what way they may even yet defeat us and retrieve their own dishonour—the more so as they have been in the highest degree and for the longest time courting a reputation for valour.

And so the issue before us, if we are prudent, is not the fate of the Egestaeans, a barbaric people in Sicily, but how we shall keep a sharp watch upon a state which is intriguing against us with the devices of oligarchy.

"And we should remember that we have but lately recovered somewhat from a great pestilence and war, so as to recruit our strength both in money and in men; and these resources it is but right to expend for ourselves here, and not for these fugitives that are begging our aid, whose interest it is to lie cleverly, and, at their neighbour's cost, supplying nothing but words themselves, either, in case of success, to show no proper gratitude, or, in the event of failure, to involve their friends in ruin.