ly, we displayed the most extraordinary courage and
devotion; there was no one to help us by land; for up to our frontier
those who lay in the enemy's path were already slaves; so we
determined to leave our city and sacrifice our homes. Even in that
extremity we did not choose to desert the cause of the allies who
still resisted, and by dispersing ourselves to become useless to them;
but we embarked and fought, taking no offense at your failure to
assist us sooner. We maintain then that we rendered you a service at
least as great as you rendered us. The cities from which you came to
help us were still inhabited and you might hope to return to them;
your concern was for yourselves and not for us; at any rate, you
remained at a distance while we had anything to lose. But we went
forth from a city which was no more, and fought for one of which there
was small hope; and yet we saved ourselves, and bore our part in
saving you. If, in order to preserve our land, like other states, we
had gone over to the Persians at first, or afterward had not ventured
to embark because our ruin was already complete, it would have been
useless for you with your weak navy to fight at sea, but everything
would have gone quietly just as the Persian desired.

"Considering, Lacedaemonians, the energy and sagacity which we then
displayed, do we deserve to be so bitterly hated by the other Hellenes
merely because we have an empire? That empire was not acquired by
force; but you would not stay and make an end of the barbarian, and
the allies came of their own accord and asked us to be their leaders.
The subsequent development of our power was originally forced upon us
by circumstances; fear was our first motive; afterward ambition, and
then interest stept in. And when we had incurred the hatred of most of
our allies, when some of them had already revolted and been
subjugated, and you were no longer the friends to us which you once
had been, but suspicious and ill-disposed, how could we without great
risk relax our hold? For the cities as fast as they fell away from us
would have gone over to you. And no man is to be reproached who seizes
every possible advantage when the danger is so great.

"At all events, Lacedaemonians, we may retort that you, in the exercise
of your supremacy, manage the cities of Peloponnesus to suit your own
views, and that if you, and not we, had persevered in the command of
the allies long enough to be hated, you would have