History of the Peloponnesian War

“The accomplishment of any of these projects promptly and more zealously depends, men of Lacedaemon, upon you, for that they are possible— and I do not think that I shall prove wrong in my judgment—I am fully assured.

And I claim that no one of you shall think more harshly of me because I, who seemed once to be a lover of my city, now make assault with all my might upon her, in concert with her bitterest enemies;

nor do I think that my word should be suspected on the score of the outcast's zeal. For outcast as I am from the villainy of those that expelled me, I am not ousted from doing you good service, if you will but hearken to me; and the worse enemies are not those who, like you, have merely hurt their enemies, but those who have forced their friends to become foes.