ainly, must ere long
withdraw from his cities, and was in fact already all but in name an
outcast from Macedonia.

(14) Or, "are you aware of a new power growing up in Hellas?"

(15) For Amyntas's reign, see Diod. xiv. 89, 92; xv. 19; Isocr.
"Panegyr." 126, "Archid." 46.

"The Olynthians have actually sent to ourselves and to the men of
Apollonia a joint embassy, warning us of their intention to attack us if
we refuse to present ourselves at Olynthus with a military contingent.
Now, for our parts, men of Lacedaemon, we desire nothing better than to
abide by our ancestral laws and institutions, to be free and independent
citizens; but if aid from without is going to fail us, we too must
follow the rest and coalesce with the Olynthians. Why, even now they
muster no less than eight hundred (16) heavy infantry and a considerably
larger body of light infantry, while their cavalry, when we have joined
them, will exceed one thousand men. At the date of our departure we left
embassies from Athens and Boeotia in Olynthus, and we were told that
the Olynthians themselves had passed a formal resolution to return the
compliment. They were to send an embassy on their side to the aforesaid
states to treat of an alliance. And yet, if the power of the Athenians
and the Thebans is to be further increased by such an accession of
strength, look to it," the speaker added, "whether hereafter you will
find things so easy to manage in that quarter.

(16) See Grote, "H. G." x. 72; Thirlwall, "H. G." v. 12 (ch. xxxvii).

"They hold Potidaea, the key to the isthmus of Pallene, and therefore,
you can well believe, they can command the states within that peninsula.
If you want any further proof of the abject terror of those states, you
have it in the fact that notwithstanding the bitter hatred which they
bear to Olynthus, not one of them has dared to send ambassadors along
with us to apprise you of these matters.

"Reflect, how you can reconcile your anxiety to prevent the unification
of Boeotia with your neglect to hinder the solidifying of a far larger
power--a power destined, moreover, to become formidable not on land
only, but by sea? For what is to stop it, when the soil itself supplies
timber for shipbuilding, (17) and there are rich revenues derived
from numerous harbours and commercial centres?--it cannot but be that
abundance of food and abundance of population will go hand in hand. Nor
have we yet reached the limits of Olynth